joy, and filial hope, and trust, in the believer's approach to the throne of grace; and what a return of gifts and graces to the Christian, in the communications of heard and answered prayer!

The dying thief pleads with the Lord, like Joseph in his prison, with the chief butler, —not so much for a present, as a future mercy; that he may share the deliverance of him to whom he makes his request ;“Think on me, when it shall be well with thee; and shew kindness, I pray thee unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house." Here, however, the similarity entirely ends. The chief butler forgat Joseph; but He who is the only Mediator of intercession, as well as the only Mediator of atonement, bears the persons, and wants of his servants and brethren before God, as He bore their sins from God's sight, when He took them upon Himself.

of

It might be, that this now happy object mercy had never prayed before; and yet

his prayer is heard and answered. Heard and answered, did I say? The Lord doth for him " exceedingly abundantly, above

all that he can ask or think."

And thus

it will ever be, when any one seeks the compassion and help of Jesus Christ. Not only shall he not seek in vain, but blessings, for which at first he dared not hope, shall be communicated to him, in the riches of that grace which supplies every need. The same Lord, who amidst the agonies of his dying hour, remembered the penitent malefactor, will never forget the prayer that pleads the merit of his blood, and the perfection of his righteousness, now that he enjoys the glory of God, and the rest of heavenly blessedness.Neither the cross of Calvary, nor the throne of heaven, can make the Great Intercessor regardless of those who must perish if he save them not. Come then to Him, owning Him as your Lord. to Him pleading his memory

Come

of your

case, and his knowledge of your need.

"Ask, and ye shall have; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. If you, dear friends, can only mourn, or sigh, or in broken sentences pour out your wants before God; nay, even if you can neither mourn, nor sigh, as you wish, the look of faith towards Jesus, as of the dying Israelites to the serpent in the wilderness, will form an expressive appeal; nay, further still, if you will lift up your hearts at all to Him, the promise is already on record, "Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear."

The manner in which our Lord replied to the cry of his eager, faithful petitioner must form the subject of our consideration to-morrow evening. I can only now beseech those whose hearts are yet hardened against Christ, to cast a glance at the dreadful consequences of that obduracy, in which, for any thing we are taught to the contrary, the other malefactor died. You have stood as it were at the foot of the

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cross, to see the triumph of the Saviour's love. Behold now the dreadful reverse! View this sinner dying in all the unfelt miseries of a hardened conscience. Ought he not in this dreadful hour to have considered that eternity, on the very brink and border of which he stood? Ought he not to have confessed the sins of which he had been guilty? Ought he not to have cried unto God for mercy? Ought not even his bodily anguish to have subdued the stubbornness of his heart? And yet nothing availed to break or soften this nether millstone, which Satan had so tremendously hardened. He dies mocking Christ. Even thus it is, that the Saviour's cross hath an effect so different upon different individuals; and the preaching of that cross also. "We are a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one, we are a savour of life unto life, and to the other a savour of death unto death." What, let me ask, is a sinner without the Redeemer's grace? What is man's heart,

until the Almighty Spirit reach it, act upon it, and melt it by the sprinkling of the Saviour's blood? No pain, no danger, no sufferings, no warnings, not even the immediate prospect of death itself, will remove its obduracy; but rather seem to confirm it. May the grace of God, and the God of grace, touch the heart of any rebel against a Redeemer's power and love, and make him know and feel, that "there is none other name under heaven given to men, whereby they may be saved, but only the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!" An obdurate heart is the greatest of all the miseries, under which man, while yet out of the house of eternal woe, can labour. There is however a remedy, even for this disease. The same blood that touches the mercy-seat for a sinner's pardon, touching the sinner's soul by faith, will open a way thither for true repentance, and all the covenant blessings of salvation that are treasured up by the riches of divine mercy in Jesus Christ.