can never be perfected in a world that bears so deeply the stamp of transgression. Moreover, the sensibility of holiness always increases as pollution comes to be detected; and the more intimately the characters of God and his laws are understood, and their matchless excellence admired, the more humiliating will be our own want of conformity to their excellence. Again, in our advances towards perfection, we are always seeing a farther reach at every new step of our rising towards it. How evident, then, that the distinguished feature of our Christian character must be that of penitence; that if we say we have no sin, we are but deceiving ourselves; that our chief confession is the confession of our sins; that our unwearied prayer is, "Forgive us our trespasses;" and that this seriousness of the soul, under a deep impression of its guiltiness in the sight of God, effected by divine grace, is the very object which corresponds with the Christian method, and for which the comfort and

instruction of the Christian method have

been provided. And may not the text lead me naturally to say, that in the dispensing of this comfort and instruction contained in the gospel method, the gracious and wise method which the sacred writers observe, is impressed by the three following qualities:-1st, By an affectionate concern for souls; 2d, By a free and full proposal of Christ to our acceptance; and, 3d, By an exercise of the strictest jealousy over the grand interests of holiness. How affectionately in the gospel method is manifested the concern for souls -language being uttered the very same as the fondest heart breathes over those choice objects of care and tenderness which are found in the relation and character of children! Again, how free and full the proposal of Christ to your acceptance, setting forth his powerfulness as an advocate, as a propitiation so perfect as to be capable of atoning, were it applied to them, for the sins of the whole world! And how strict the jealousy which, along with this unlimited offer of grace, is exercised over the grand interests of holiness, since every thing written by the power of the Spirit on the subject of guilt and pardon, is expressly that we sin not!

Surely, in the first place, the most affectionate concern for souls is a quality inseparable from the Christian method. This method speaks to you and me of mercy and salvation. This message tells

us, that the Being of infinite power and holiness condescends to regard us with pity and tenderness. This message declares, that justly as we have deserved eternal exclusion from his favour, be yet seeks our restoration to himself: yes, that such is his compassion, that to fulfil the plan of restoration to himself, he did not spare even his own Son. It assures us, that he waits our return with parental solicitude, and will receive us back with the prompt and generous ardour of the father receiving the prodigal; yea, he pleads with us not for a moment to defer the opportunity of returning to his arms, to the new robe, the ring, and the shoes, and the fatted calf, and give joy even to angels, and share in the honour and happiness of children of his family and heirs of his kingdom. It is true the Christian method yields to us no comfort till it has first brought us to the consciousness of our sins; and accordingly, this is ever its prefatory language, "If you say that you have no sin, you deceive yourselves." But this preliminary rebuke is most gracious; its being heard by us, and entering into our hearts with humiliating and alarming influence, is just the proof that he who sends it remembers us, and cares for us, and loves us; that he thinks of us with a father's heart, and would bring us all within the precincts of his family, and thus bestow on us the riches of his love. "O Israel, put on me your help; why will ye die? What can I do more for my vineyard that I have not done? Mine heart is turned within me; my repentings are kindled together. Return unto me, I will heal your backsliding, I will love you freely, for mine anger is turned away. Whosoever will, let him come. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Incline your ear and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live. Ye shall be my children, saith the Lord Almighty.” O what words are these! what a message to be spoken to us on the authority of the eternal God; and not only so, but to be directly sent to us from his own mouth, and conveyed to us with such eloquence from the gracious being whom we have offended, repulsed, and hated! O who may conceive of the ardour and benevolence that dictated the message proclaimed in the Gospel of St. John! This beloved disciple, receiving the very Spirit of his master, as he leant on his bosom at the

supper of the communion, how zeal for the human soul glows in his writings how he rises above all the other disciples on the subject of the attractive influence of the love of Christ-O how anxiously his heart pants over the members of Christ's family! And if such was the generosity of sentiment in an ambassador of the grace of God, what must be the generosity of the God of all grace himself as he proclaims to us by his Son the message of redeeming love! He himself declares, that he willeth not that any of us should perish, but that all of us should be reconciled to him, and wins us to his family, and rejoices over us as his children. There is a height and a depth, a breadth and a length, of this love of God which passeth knowledge. O that it may secure our regard, touch our hearts, and effectually draw us to those privileges of God's children, which sin had virtually lost to us, and which, even when restored to us, the consciousness of sin is so ready to interrupt and imbitter.

It is then for the accomplishing of this desire that, in the 2d place, we are met so particularly and unceasingly with the free and ample proposal of Christ to our acceptance. There is nothing but this proposal that can unite the two seemingly irreconcileable things-our consciousness of sin, and our admission to the privileges of God's children; for Christ is proposed to us because of our sin, and the hope of accepting his salvation to us arises from no view of our personal guilt being in itself less heinous than the personal guilt of others, but simply from the view that we are chargeable before God with what is in itself infinitely hateful. Yet a method of restoring us is proposed.

In this proposal, there is set before us the divine provision for the comfort of the soul that is seriously convinced of sin, and desires to be freed from sin. Christ is set before us as mediator between God and man. In setting Christ before us, the descriptive language employed sets before us the idea of the court, the judge, the accuser, and the criminals. Heaven is the court, and the judge is the Father; and penitent sinners are the parties with whom he is engaged in his mediatorial capacity. He stands at the foot of the judge to meet the charge which the accuser brings against the criminals, but he does not plead any thing for the purpose

implies, more than all their confessions could do, how exceedingly guilty they are. Their unworthiness and corruptions are spread out in all their aggravation before the Judge, but he pleads still for their acquittal, their safety, their blessedness; and he does so on the principles of equity, for he who pleads is Jesus Christ the righteous, and it must be on principles of equity on which he pleads. And though he pleads for the unworthy, he is Jesus Christ the righteous still; because the powerfulness of his advocacy is secured by virtue of his own atonement. He became substitute and surety for sinners, as far as it could be done with consistency to his own glorious character. He bore what is equivalent to the penalty for sin-he assumed our flesh; he took part of the same that he might redeem us; he that knew no sin was made a sin offering for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He is one with the Father, God manifest in the flesh; and being thus an all sufficient Saviour, he is able to reconcile us. He is God who hath redeemed the church with his own blood; and the magnitude of his love in our redemption is ascertained by the truth that he laid down his life for us; and since in him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily, his obedience, and the satisfaction made in our behalf, have made honourable the law of the judge, infinitely above what the punishment of our whole race could have effected. He pleads, therefore, this obedience and this satisfaction as glorifying both the mercy and equity of God. He pleads with the Father, who anointed him for the pure purpose of reconciling sinners to himself, by the blessing of his grace, and is ever well pleased with his Son, in having accomplished the designs of his mercy. As in righteousness, therefore, Jesus Christ the righteous pleads, so in righteousness it is that he gains his plea. Grace is extended to sinners, even to the chief. And, lest even the free and ample proposal of Christ now made, should not secure your confidence, there remaineth behind, in the text, a more comprehensive expression still, of its fulness and freeness; for the sacrifice of Christ did not exhaust its power to save in the redemption of the first believers; nor were its precious benefits limited to the people of the Jews, to whom it was first addressed; nor are its blessings kept for any one

He is the propitiation for our sins, but not for ours only. His atonement, as it was applied to all our race, is capable of pardoning all our race. To speak indeed, of its pardoning, though never applied to us, is unmeaning language. It cannot be an atonement for our salvation, unless our sins are pardoned by it. Our sins are not pardoned by it, unless it be applied to us; but then to the capability of the extension of the atonement, to the inherent virtue of this atonement, no limits can be set. Not the most inveterate transgressors are placed beyond the reach of its pardoning merit; not the transgression of the darkest stain is removed from its cleansing power. What are all mankind, all that ever have lived, all that ever shall live? They are beings whose numbers can be reckoned, whose rank in the scale of existence can easily be ascertained; but the character of Jesus as God in our nature, cannot be estimated; it stands forth in glory, which, in moral dignity, sinks infinitely beneath it the whole creation of intelligences.

The propitiation made in his person, my brethren, is to be considered as not only taking away the sins of us who believe, but if the whole world would believe, it is equally capable of taking away the sins of the whole world. Who, then, can doubt the power to benefit his own individual case, of what is thus announced universally full? or who, conscious of his need of an atonement, can reasonably doubt that he will receive the blessing of it, especially when he reflects, that even the multitudes that have discarded him, are still invited to come and receive it. Whoever comes, then, to this propitiationwhoever comes to this propitiation bewailing his sins, must not allow a suspicious thought to interrupt that confidence which we are called to repose in the fulness of the atonement, and in the freeness of its offer. Whoever would reason you into the idea, that the propitiation is not able to meet your case, account that person an enemy equally to the honour of the Saviour, and your own peace. Say you such accuserevery -There is an advocate with the Father. The satisfaction of Christ is an infinite satisfaction. I will not, I ought not, to despair of pardon. I will raise my supplication, in the persuasion of receiving a gracious answer. I look from myself to my Surety-from my guilt to his atonement-from the throne of justice to the mercy seat-from the

to

judgment that might righteously have consumed me, to that Lamb as it has been slain, whose blood is sufficient to take away my sins. Say all this in the exercise of faith, with humbleness, with repentance for every sin, with a resolution to rest implicitly in the perfection of the propitiation with which God has declared himself well pleased, seeking before all, in the atoning sacrifice, the means of rendering you like in holiness to him who rendered the sacrifice.

But this leads me to state, in the last place, that to the mercy of the proposal of Christ, and the affectionate concern for souls, are united the strictest jealousy for the interests of holiness. "These things write I unto you, that ye sin not." The direct result of teaching you forgive ness through the great propitiation of Christ, is moral purity. If forgiveness had been declared as unpurchased by an infinite ransom, the guilt had been lessened in your estimation; and if guilt had been named by extenuating names- -if the message brought by us to you, had conveyed the reconciliation of your conscience to God, by certain tidings of an indulgent and endearing exercise of mercy on his part towards you, then, whatever temporary ease the believing of our word might have given you, it would have proved itself to right reason never to have come from a God of purity, because the peace it offered was separated from holiness. But O to learn, as you do from the Bible, that the salvation of your souls were utterly hopeless, except for the sacrifice of infinite value; to learn that, in order to the remedy for sin, the counsels of eternal wisdom were employed, a blessed Trinity entering into the covenant of grace-the Father giving up the Son-the Son devoting himself to the Father's will, and the Holy Spirit carrying forward the merciful scheme; to learn that, for remission of sin, an atonement had been presented, the value of which rises beyond the computation of every created intelligence; to learn that the plans of eternal wisdom, that the incarnation, that the sacrifice on the cross, that the mediation of his Son, that the advocacy with the Father, that all has been combined in the work of taking away your sins, how efficacious to render an evil in itself as hateful in your souls as the reality ought to make it? What a power has all this to give the body of sin in your hearts its deadly

wound, and to urge you to its destruction ? These things are all to lead you that you sin not, that you do not spare from your execration and resistance, one habit of feeling or thought which the divine law forbids,-that you wage war with the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, that you mourn over every instance of the reascendency of evil in your soul, and pray that you yield yourselves no rest while you know, that, instead of aiming after universal holiness, there is some portion of sanctity you have not yet thoroughly acquired, and one sin you have not thoroughly forsaken, and that you bring every motive that arises from saving mercy and threatening judgment, to bear upon your souls, to remove you farther from the corruption of the tempter, and attach you closer and closer to the virtues of the Saviour. Thus the Gospel imparts comfort, but only to the penitent, the Gospel gives encouragement, but bear in mind that encouragement is widely separate from licentiousness,-it diffuses peace, but peace away from all false security-it fixes your trust in God, but shakes from you every vestige of presumption, the privileges of divine favour are received, but these are to increase your reverence for the divine glory,-the blood of the cross is to quench the flame that raged against the sinner, but it is to inflame his soul the more against sin and his sinful propensities, the whole scheme of salvation animates the souls of believers with delight, but the great design is to animate every part of the Christian character to greater fidelity and diligence. While, then, you listen to the message of grace in the Gospel, a message, which, coming from the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour, addresses you with language of most affectionate concern for your souls, and, by drawing you to the privileges of | the divine family, would give you in reality what the name of children implies; and while for that very end you early accept the proposal of Christ so free, that not a being who listens to it is excluded, and so ample, as to present a redemption efficacious, if it were applied, to save the whole human race,-while you rejoice in all this, never forget that the mercy offered you is offered for your redemption from the power, as well as from the effects, of sin, and that as ye cannot be children of God unless ye are seeking resemblance

|

to your Father's image, and bewailing every mark of dissimilarity to your Father's will, and as even the advocacy of Christ cannot save a soul that is uniting the deliberate indulgence of follies and worldliness, and lusts, to a professed confidence in the Saviour's atonement, so here is the substance of the Gospel,-" These things are written unto you, that ye sin not." O! I know the truth-in my heart I feel it! exclaims the penitent believer. Then the scheme of mercy brought in by the Gospel cannot be aught but the harbinger of peace, since the scheme originating in God, introduced by his Only Son, is rendered effectual by the Holy Spirit. I find it written, that the Word of Life was manifest in the flesh, and seen and looked upon in all the glory of the only begotten Son of God, and can I doubt that this was done that I sin not ? I find it written, that a most noble fellowship is prepared for believers, even communion with the Father, and the Son, and all the followers of the Lamb who have already washed their robes, and made them white in his blood, and can I doubt that this is written to me that I sin not? I find it written, that to walk in worldliness is to separate the soul from infinite purity, and can I doubt that this is written to me that I sin not? I find it written, that my nature is fallen, that my corruptions are originally great, that the confessing of my sins in an exercise of faith is to bring forgiveness, and thus that blood, in which the Christian trusts, is not only to pardon him, but to cleanse him from all unrighteousness, and can I doubt that this is written to me that I sin not? Well, I am convinced of the holy design of all that is written in the word of God; but, alas! this is the very conviction that oppresses my heart, and is so ready to enfeeble and depress me. I do strive against all sin, yet I sin. I seek the remedy for all disease, yet the disease exists. I have gone to the great High Priest-I have bared my soul to his inspection, yet the leprosy is there, and conscience, though it never questions the efficacy of what is able to reach the sins of the whole world, yet questions the efficacy of my own faith. Thus, many a mourner in Sion is troubled, but we may say to such a mourner in Sion,-The language I have now put into your mouth, is an expression of grief for the remains of indwelling sin; and then, if it be really grief on account