Such are the pleasures of this sacrifice: but what are its rewards? Let us only try to form an idea of the manner in which God gives himself to a soul, that devotes itself wholly to him. Ah! if we love him, is it not because he first loved us? Alas! to what degree soever we elevate our love to him, it is nothing in comparison of his love to us! What shall I say to you, my brethren, on the love of God to us? What shall I say of the blessings, which he pours on these states, and on the individuals who compose them, of the restoration of peace, the confirmation of your liberties, the preservation of your lives, the long-suffering that he exercises toward your souls? Above all, what shall I say concerning that great mystery, the anniversary of which the church invites you to celebrate next Lord's day? God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, John iii. 16.

A God who has loved us in this manner, when we were enemies to him, how will he not love us, now we are become his friends, now we dedicate to him ourselves, and all beside that we possess? What bounds can be set to his love? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Rom. viii. 32. Here I sink under the weight of my subject, O my God! how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee! Psal. xxxi. 19. My God! what will not the felicity of that creature be, who gives himself wholly to thee, as thou givest thyself to him!

Thus, my dear brethren, religion is nothing but gratitude, sensibility, and love. God grant we may

know it in this manner! May the knowledge of it fill the heart and mouth of each of us during this festival, and from this moment to the hour of death, with the language of my text, "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt-offerings for sin, thou hast had no pleasure: Then said I, Lo! I come. I come, as it is written in the volume of the book, to do thy will, O God!" May God condescend to confirm our resolutions by his grace. Amen.

SERMON VII.

The Efficacy of the Death of Christ.

2 CORINTHIANS v. 14, 15.

The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him, which died for them, and rose again.

MY BRETHREN,

WE have great designs to-day on you, and we have great means of executing them. Sometimes we require the most difficult duties of morality of you. At other times we preach the mortification of the senses to you, and with St. Paul, we tell you, they that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts," Gal. v. 24. Sometimes we attack your attachment to riches, and after the example of our great Master, we exhort you to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal," Matt. vi. 20. At other times we endeavour to prepare you for some violent operation, some severe exercises, with which it may please God to try you, and we repeat the words of the apostle to the Hebrews, "Ye have not

yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin: Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees," Heb. xii. 4, 12. At other times we summon you to suffer a death more painful than your own; we require you to dissolve the tender ties that unite your hearts to your relatives and friends; we adjure you to break the bonds that constitute all the happiness of your lives, and we utter this language, or shall I rather say, thunder this terrible gradation in the name of Almighty God, "Take now thy son-thine only son-Isaac-whom thou lovest-and offer him for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of," Gen. xxii. 2. To-day we demand all these. We require more than the sacrifice of your senses, more than that of your riches, more than that of your impatience, more than that of an only son; we demand an universal devotedness of yourselves to the author and finisher of your faith; and to repeat the emphatical language of my text, which in its extensive compass involves, and includes all these duties, we require you " henceforth not to live unto yourselves but unto him, who died and rose again for you."

As we have great designs on you, so we have great means of executing them. They are not only a few of the attractives of religion. They are not only such efforts as your ministers sometimes make, when uniting all their studies and all their abilities, they approach you with the power of the word: It is not only an august ceremony, or a solemn festival. They are all these put together.

God hath assembled them all in the marvellous transactions of this one day.

Here are all the attractives of religion. Here are all the united efforts of your ministers, who unanimously employ on these occasions all the penetration of their minds, all the tenderness of their hearts, all the power of language to awake your piety, and to incline you to render to Jesus Christ love for love, and life for life. It is an august ceremony, in which, under the most simple symbols, that nature affords, God represents the most sublime objects of religion to you. This is a solemn festival, the most solemn festival, that Christians observe, this occasions them to express in songs of the highest joy their gratitude and praise to their deliverer, these are their sentiments, and thus they exult, The right hand of the Lord doth valiantly! Psal. cxviii. 15. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, Eph. i. 3. Blessed be God, who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Pet. i. 3.

And on what days, is it natural to suppose, should the preaching of the gospel perform those miracles, which are promised to it, if not on such days as these? When if not on such days as these, should the sword of the spirit, divide asunder soul and spirit, joints, and marrow, Eph. vi. 17. Heb. iv. 12. and cut in twain every bond of self-love and sin?

To all these means add the supernatural assistance that God communicates in a double portion in these circumstances to all those, whom a desire of recon