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most perfectly with each other. Instead | unfolded—we should witness conscious

of obliterating or interfering with each other in the exercise of their respective functions, they reflect on the province of both, the greatest possible force of illustration.

In looking towards them we may say with the Apostle, "behold then the goodness and severity of GOD," and instead of being in a state of conflict, each by every new exercise strengthens the line of demarkation by which the territory of the other is guarded from all violence. Should a sinner, pressed by the terrors of the one, take refuge amidst the promises of the other, he does not thereby defraud the law of its unalienable rights, but renders to it in fact the greatest possible homage, by bowing unto Him who, in honour of the law, bowed down his head unto the sacrifice. Or if the sinner stand out in defiance to the threats of the law, and be alike indifferent to the promises of the Gospel, then does the latter leave him still in the hands of the former. The Gospel does not strip the law of a single prerogative, and instead of harbouring the renegade who would trample upon both, it leaves him to the penalties of an aggravated condemnation.

In the Gospel, nature takes no delight, and in the law it finds no disturbance. The voice of menace and the voice of mercy are alike unheeded; the open gates of hell and of heaven, which lie upon the other side of death, are hidden as if by an impenetrable screen from the eye of the senses, and with every man who is still unenlightened, they are still hidden from his spiritual eye. Now one might conceive, that by a partial unfolding of the screen, the way which leadeth from this world to the place of the accursed, to the gate of hell, opened first to the view of the beholder, and then should we witness those who are in the second state, to whom the screen has been but partially

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guilt in its state of remorse, and restlessness, and alarm, till the screen had been further unfolded, and then should we see those in the third state, the way that leadeth to the place of the redeemed floating with the signals of invitation revealed to the eye of the traveller. The two unfolded at once, with the intercepted veil at once lifted away, showed both the danger and the deliverance, and made them palpable alike to the soul, newly ushered, for the first time, into this scene of manifestation and no sooner are the thunders of an outraged law heard by the spiritual ear than are heard along with them the glad tidings and overtures of the Gospel. And with both in full contemplation, at once might they be urged to a choice between the death and the life that were then set evidently before the eye of the observer. Now, my brethren, they are both placed beside each other in the text, which suggests to the reader, at one and the same time, the greatness of their ruin, and the greatness of their deliverance therefrom-at once to beget a dread of the one, and to urge to flee from the wrath to come, for "how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"

It is observable, my brethren, that the purpose for which the greatness of this salvation is here urged, is to vindicate a heavier doom of those who shall live and die in the negligence thereof. After such an offer being resisted; their blood remaineth upon their own head, GOD wipeth his hands of them, and " what," may he well exclaim, "what could I have not done more to my vineyard than I have done in it; wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes." Had there been no way of escape pointed out to you, it might not have been so easy to answer the

complaints of the sinner against GOD. | self that he can be menaced with impunity by a creature so frail and feeble as you? Tell me, honestly, whether the peace you now experience is that of a man who has blinked the question of his eternal destiny and so left it unsettled, or that of a man who has sifted and considered the question of his soul's future well-being in all seriousness, and has at length placed it on a footing that will keep him firm and undismayed amidst the agonies of death? Tell me this, can you stand the reckoning of a holy God without a Gospel, and without a Saviour? Are you not aware that sin has separated between you and GOD, and that this is the delinquency under which you would vainly escape? Tell me, is it for HIM, or for you, the offender, to find out the adjustment of your soul's controversy, and to dictate the terms of the treaty of reconciliation? Or should He, in pity to a fallen world, stoop from the heights of his offended majesty, and again beckon us to his own realms of light and purity? Is it for you to quarrel with the path of access which He has prescribed, or to say that you want no salvation, and stand in need of no Saviour?

But now that a way, so palpable and so free has been provided, and provided, too, for all under the economy of the Gospel-when in lack of all righteousness of his own, the righteousness of Christ is held out even to the chief of sinners, that he may put it on, and appear before God invested in its honours, and crowned with its everlasting rewards—when plied with the tenderness of a father's love, that has been made to beam upon the world from the countenance of the Eternalwhen the protestation, and the assurance of welcome and good will, and the wide sounding call of "Look unto me and be saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am GOD; and, besides me, there is no Saviour"-when these are all held out to view in the indelible record of God's own testimony-when He hath thus embarked, in the sight of men and of angels, his honour in the fulfilment of the purpose, that if you but close with Christ, and but accept of him as he is offered in the Gospel, you will receive in him an unfailing protection on earth, and an everlasting blessedness in heaven Oh! tell me how you can pass through the ordeal of the coming judgment if it shall be found that, dead, and listless, and immoveable in the midst of all these encouragements, you still could grovel in the depths of your own sin and your own sordidness, moved by no terror in the threats of ven. geance, and by no allurements in the offered friendship of God?

And why is it, that you feel so reckless and so secure? Do you really think yourselves in a state in which it will do to die in? Would no misgiving sense of unpreparedness come upon your heart did you but once find yourselves in good earnest on the margin of eternity? Can you seriously imagine of God's law that its honours can be compromised-or of God him

We are called to kiss the Son whilst he is in the way; it is a short and a little while; the season of offered mercy is speeding onward to its close. In a few years the youngest of us will be swept from the land of Gospel opportunity. Oh, remember that the voice of a beseeching God is upon you only until death, after which the voice ceases to be heard, and the light of the Sun of Righteousness is lifted up no longer, and the fountain opened in Judah for sin and for uncleaness has an everlasting seal set upon it, and a dark impassable gulf passes between the souls of the impenitent and the blood of sprinkling. "Kiss the Son then whilst he is in the way," or mark the alternative, "his wrath will begin

to burn." He who now is all meekness, and gentleness, and kind entreaty, will then look upon you with an altered countenance; and oh! it is indeed a striking expression-" the wrath of the Lamb!" The wrath of him who is denoted by that which is the emblem of patience, and nonresistance, and timidity! A wrath then to the excitement of which there must have been a series of deep and bitter provocations. A wrath, ye careless and ye worldly, that ye are now treasuring up unto the day of its outpouring, when ye shall call in vain upon the hills and mountains to fall upon you, and to hide you from the wrath of the Lamb-likewise you will be made to feel that no indignation burns more fiercely than the indignation of slighted tenderness, and that there is no vengeance more overwhelming than the vengeance of offended and rejected mercy! For" how shall ye escape if | ye neglect so great salvation."

Nor should you marvel at such a doom when you only think of the way in which it is brought on. That Christ should have so suffered for our sakesthat he should have descended on our miserable world from that eminence of pure and peaceful glory which he before possessed that he should have put on the infirmities of our nature, and shrouded his godhead in a tabernacle of flesh which he took with him to heaven, and for aught we know will

adhere to him through all eternitythat amid the agonies of a misterious conflict he should have poured out his soul, and undertaking for the guilty millions of our race, should have borne the whole weight of their ungodlinessthat during the hour and power of darkness, when the sword of righteous vengear.ce was awakened against Jehovah's fellow, and the vials of an incensed and insulted law-giver were poured out by the Father upon his Son, he should have bowed down his head to the sacrifice that thus he should have put forth all the energies of strength and suffering, that the mountain of our iniquity might be levelled, and that we might pass over in peace unto our God-that after having made reconciliation he should rise again as the author and finisher of a kingly inheritance—that the overtures of peace and mercy being proclaimed through him to the unworthiest of an alienated species, the tidings of the Gospel should by them be slighted, despised, and rejected—think of all this and you will be at no loss to comprehend why he who now stands out in the winning gentleness of his nature, and bends with longing compassion over you, should then come forth in vindictiveness and fury on all who have treated lightly such dearbought privileges, and on all who have trampled on the grace and mercy of such an invitation.

(To be continued.)

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that all is grace; that the peace and purity of the Gospel are ever in alliance; and that they who walk before the Lord without fear, walk before him in holiness and righteousness all their days.

Oh, avail yourselves of the precious | you will be sure to experience also moment that is now passing over you. Christ is offered to you, salvation is at your choice, forgiveness through the blood of a satisfying atonement is yours if you will. God does not want to magnify the power of his anger, he wants to magnify the power of his grace upon you. Try to approach him in your own righteousness, and you will find yourselves toiling at an immeasurable distance; but come with the righteousness of Christ as your plea, and you will indeed be permitted to draw nigh. GOD will rejoice over you for the sake of Him in whom he is eternally well pleased, and you will find peace, and rest, and comfort to your souls.

I have one concluding remark, my brethren, to make, and I shall have done; a remark which, to serve the salutary purpose of conviction and alarm, ought to be much dwelt upon. People are apt to be satisfied, and to feel themselves safe in their prospects for eternity, if they are but free of all flagrant and positive violations of the law of GOD. They ascribe no such guiltiness as should disturb the conscience, and no such danger as should excite alarm to any thing short of those flagrant violations; and so if their life be tolerably respectable, and tolerably blameless, they enjoy a peace and a complacency which after all, we doubt, will prove illusory and fallacious. Now it must be very obvious to you all, that a man may observe all the common decencies of outward conduct, and yet be in a state of utter unconcern about all that is inwardly religious. In regard to all the earthly moralities of the outer man, there may be little or nought about him that is positively bad; but yet in regard to all the heavenly af

This is the only way of access unto the Father. Could I state the matter to you more plainly I would. I want to bring you into the condition of a simple receiver of God's pardon-a simple holder on the truth of his promises; it is on this footing, and on this alone, that you can ever be clothed in the garments of acceptance, and stand firmly and securely on the ground of reconciliation before your heavenly Father. Oh, turn then into this peaceful haven, and in the act of your turning, God will pour out his Spirit upon you. As the fruit of your faith you will become a new creature, and infections of the inner man, there may stepping over to that region of sun- be negatively the utter destitution of shine, where all is holiness and peace, all that is good.

VOL. II.

Now, what is the

A A

Now it were well if you took account of yourselves in respect of this. Is it not true, that although not charge

lesson which we are to infer from our text in reference to this state of things? It does not suppose the men, on whom it denounces the unescapable venge-able with gross crime, your life may be ance of GOD, to have treated with one of hourly and habitual carelessridicule or contemptuous scorn the ness? Do not days and weeks, or great salvation-it simply charges months, or years, pass over your heads them with having neglected it. without the question of your eternity being formally and deliberately taken up and in good earnest entertained? We do not charge you with aught like dishonesty in business, or with any violent infraction of the common duties of relationship in society, but we affirm, that, combined with all these, there may be the utmost practical indifference to the realities of an immortal state, and that as to the coming death, the coming judgment, the coming and everlasting hereafter, you might live in the profoundest insensibility; the habitual aim and pursuit of your affections might be away from GOD, and your affections be altogether set on a world from which you shall shortly be everlastingly torn away. This is the state from which you need to be awakened-this is the sleep of death which needs to be dispelled, for if your present course be persisted in, it will land you in that tribulation, and wrath, and anguish, from which you cannot possibly escape if you neglect so great salvation. "Let us hope better things of you, even things which accompany salvation, though we thus speak, now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation!"

There is no aggravated hostility to the Saviour charged upon them, but just a heedlessness of the Saviour. And yet from this, and many other passages of the Bible, the consequences of this purely negative state, a state so often exemplified by men observant of all the outward duties of an ordinary life, would appear to be most tremendous. 65 'They that forget GOD," it is said, "shall be turned into hell." They that lack the knowledge of Christ shall perish." They that are under the spirit of a deep slumber shall at length be awakened, and fearfulness shall surprize them. So that without supposing any foul or flagrant delinquency of conduct, simply, it would appear by your unconcern, by your neglect, by your heedlessness of the things which belong to your everlasting peace, by the levity and listlessness of your minds in regard to GoD and the soul and the things of faith and eternity, by these alone, and apart altogether from what is gross and inexcusable in respect to literal transgression, you forfeit the high approbation of God, and plunge yourselves into the horrors of an everlasting condemnation.

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