and still more firmly confided in. But it worshippers-had they, whose conscience will be further seen, that in this short sen- was a law unto themselves, just acted and tence of the Apostle, there lies a compound followed on as they might under the guidargument which admits of being separated ance of its compunctious visitations--had into distinct parts. There is a reference there been any thing like the forth-going made to a two-fold state of matters, which, of a general desire, however faint, towards by being resolved into its two particulars, that unknown Being, the sense and impresbrings out two accessions of strength to the sion of whom were never wholly obliteconclusion of our Apostle, which are inde-rated-then it might have been less decisive pendent of each other. He, in fact, holds of God's will for reconciliation, that he gave forth a double claim upon our understand-way to these returning demonstrations on ing, and we propose to view successively the part of his alienated creatures, and the two particulars of which it is made up. There is first, then, a comparison made between one state of matters, and another state of matters which obtain in our earthand there is at the same time a comparison made between one state of matters, and another state of matters which obtain in heaven-and from each of these there may be educed an argument for strengthening the assurance of every Christian, in that salvation which the Gospel has made known to us.

reared a pathway of communication by which sinners may draw nigh unto God. But for God to have done this very thing, when these sinners were persisting in the full spirit and determination of their unholy warfare-for him to have done so, when instead of any returning loyalty rising up to him like the incense of a sweet-smelling savour, the exhalations of idolatry and vice blackened the whole canopy of heaven, and ascended in a smoke of abomination before him-for him to have done so at the very time. that all flesh had corrupted its ways, and when either with or without the law of revelation, God saw that the wicked

Let us first look, then, to the two states upon earth—and this may be done either with a reference to this world's history, or it may be done with a reference to the per-ness of man was great in the earth, and that sonal history of every one man who is now a believer.

every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually-in these circumstances of deep and unalleviated provocation, and when God may have eased him of his adversaries, by sweeping the whole of this moral nuisance away from the face of the universe which it deformedfor such a time to have been a time of love, when majesty seemed to call for some solemn vindication, but mercy could not let us go-surely, if through such a barrier between God and the guilty, he, in the longings of his desire after them, forced a pathway of reconciliation, he never will turn himself away from any, who, cheered forward by his own intreaties, are walking upon that path. But if, when enemies, he himself found out an approach by which he might beckon them to enter into peace with him, how much more when they are so approaching, will he meet them with the light of his countenance, and bless them with the joys of his salvation.

That point of time in the series of general history at which reconciliation was made, was when our Saviour said that it is finished, and gave up the ghost. God may be said to have then become reconciled to the world, in as far as he was ready to enter into agreement with all who drew nigh in the name of this great propitiation. Now think of the state of matters upon earth, previous to the time when reconciliation in this view was entered upon. Think of the strength of that moving principle in the bosom of the Deity, which so inclined him towards a world then lying in the depths of ungodliness-and from one end to another of it, lifting the cry of rebellion against him. There was no movement on the part of the world towards God-no returning sense of allegiance towards him from whom they had revolted so deeply-no abatement of that profligacy which so rioted at large over a wide scene of lawless, and thankless, and But this argument may be looked to in careless abandonment—no mitigation of that another way. Instead of fixing our regards foul and audacious insolence by which the upon that point in the general history of the throne of heaven was assailed; and a spec- world, when the avenue was struck out betacle so full of offence to the unfallen was tween our species and their offended Lawheld forth, of a whole province in arms giver; and through the rent vail of a Saagainst the lawful Monarch of creation. viour's flesh, a free and consecrated way of Had the world thrown down its weapons access was opened for the guiltiest of them of disobedience-had a contrite and relent-all-let a believer in Christ fix his regards ing spirit gone previously forth among its upon that passage in his own personal hisgenerations had the light which even then glimmered in the veriest wilds of Paganism, just up to the strength and degree of its influence, told aright on the moral sensibilities of the deluded and licentious

tory at which he was drawn in his desires and in his confidence to this great Mediator, and entered upon the grace wherein he now stands, and gave up his evil heart of unbelief, and made his transition out of dark

world are now sleeping in profoundest lethargy; and withheld altogether that light of the spirit which he had done so much to extinguish. But if, instead of all this, God kept by him in the midst of his thankless provocations-and while he was yet a regardless enemy, made his designs of grace to bear upon him--and throughout all the mazes of his chequered history, conducted

ness to the marvellous light of the Gospel. Let him compare what he was, when an alien from God, through wicked works of his own, with what he is when a humble but confiding expectant of God's mercy through the righteousness of another. Who translated him into the condition which he now occupies? Who put into his heart the faith of the Gospel? Who awakened him from the dormancy and unconcern of na-him to the knowledge of himself as a reconture? Who stirred up that restless but salutary alarm which at length issued in the secure feeling of reconciliation? There was a time of his past life when the whole doctrine of salvation was an offence to him, when its preaching was foolishness to his ears; when its phraseology tired and disgusted him; when, in light and lawless companionship, he put the warnings of religious counsel, and the urgency of menacing sermons away from his bosom-a time when the world was his all, and when he was wholly given over to the idolatry of its pursuits, and pleasures, and projects of aggrandizement a time when his heart was unvisited with any permanent seriousness about God, of whom his conscience sometimes reminded him, but whom he soon dismissed from his earnest contemplationa time when he may have occasionally heard of a judgment, but without one practical movement of his soul towards the task of preparation--a time when the overtures of peace met him on his way, but which he, in the impetuous prosecution of his own objects, utterly disregarded-a time when death plied him with its ever-recurring mementoes, but which he, overlooking the short and summary arithmetic of the few little years that lay between him and the last messenger, placed so far on the background of his anticipation, that this earth, this passing and perishable earth, formed the scene of all his solicitudes. Is there none here present who remembers such a time of his by-gone history, and with such a character of alienation from God and from his Christ, as I have now given to it? And who, I ask, recalled him from this alienation? By whose guidance was he conducted to that demonstration either of the press or of the pulpit, which awakened him? Who sent that afflictive visitation to his door, which weaned his spirit from the world, and wooed it to the deathless friendships, and the ever-during felicities of heaven? Who made known to him the extent of his guilt, with the overpassing extent of the redemption that is provided for it? It was not he himself who originated the process of his own salvation. God may have abandoned him to his own courses; and said of him as he has done of many others, "I will let him alone, since he will have it so;" and given him up to that judicial blindness, under which the vast majority of the

ciling God-and so softened his heart with family bereavements, or so tore it from all its worldly dependencies by the disasters of business, or so shook it with frightful agitation by the terrors of the law, or so shone upon it with the light of his free Spirit, as made it glad to escape from the treachery of nature's joys and nature's promises, into a relying faith on the offers and assurances of the Gospel-why, just let him think of the time when God did so much for himand then think of the impossibility that God will recede from him now, or that he will cease from the prosecution of that work in circumstances of earnest and desirous concurrence on the part of the believer, which he himself begun in the circumstances either of his torpid unconcern, or of his active and haughty defiance. The God who moved towards him in his days of forgetfulness, will not move away from him in his days of hourly and habitual remembrance-and he who intercepted him in his career of rebellion, will not withdraw from him in his career of new obedience-and he who first knocked at the door of his conscience, and that too in a prayerless, and thankless, and regardless season of his history, will not, now that he prays in the name of Christ, and now that his heart is set upon salvation, and now that the doctrine of grace forms all his joy and all his dependence; he who thus found him out a distant and exiled rebel, will not abandon him now that his fellowship is with the Father, and with the Son. It is thus that the believer may shield his misgiving heart from all its despondencies. It is thus that the argument of the text goes to fortify his faith, and to perfect that which is lacking in it. It is thus that the how much more of the Apostles should cause him to abound more and more in the peace and the joy of believing-and should encourage every man who has laid hold on the hope set before us, to steady and confirm his hold still more tenaciously than before, so as to keep it fast and sure even unto the end.

With a man who knows himself to be a believer, this argument is quite irresistible, and it will go to establish his faith, and to strengthen it, and to settle it, and to make it perfect. But it is possible for a man really to believe, and yet to be in ignorance for a time whether he does so or not--and it is possible for a man to be in earnest about

THE SURE WARRANT OF A BELIEVER'S HOPE.

turn his own face away from the man who
is moving towards God, and earnestly seek-
ing after him, if haply he may find him?

his soul, and yet not to have received that loathsome and polluted dwelling-places---if truth which is unto salvation--and it is pos- to get at his strayed children, he had thus sible for him to be actuated by a strong to find his way through all those elements general desire to be right, and yet to be of impiety and ungodliness, which are most walking among the elements of uncertain- abhorrent to the sanctity of his nature, think ty-and it is possible for him to be looking you, my brethren, think you that the God to that quarter whence the truths of the who made such an advancing movement Gospel are offered to his contemplation, and towards the men whose faces were utterly yet not to have attained the distinct or satis-away from him---is this a God who will fying perception of them--thoroughly engaged in the prosecution of his peace with God, determinedly bent on this object as the This argument obtains great additional highest interest he can possibly aspire after, labouring after a settlement, and, under all force, when we look to the state of matters the agonies of a fierce internal war, seeking, in heaven at the time that we upon earth and toiling, and praying for his deliverance. were enemies, and compare it with the state It is at the point of time when faith en- of matters in heaven, now that we are acters the heart, that reconciliation is entered tually reconciled, or are beginning to enterupon-nor can we say of this man, that he tain the offers of reconciliation. Before the is yet a believer, or, that he has passed from work of our redemption, Jesus Christ was the condition of an enemy to that of a friend. in primeval glory-and though a place of And yet upon him the argument of the text mystery to us, it was a place of secure and should not be without its efficacy. It is ineffable enjoyment-insomuch, that the such an argument as may be employed not fondest prayer he could utter in the depths merely to confirm the faith which already of his humiliation, was to be taken back exists, but to help on to its formation that again to the ancient of days, and there to be faith which is struggling for an establish- restored to the glory which he had with ment in the heart of an inquirer. It falls, him before the world was. It was from the no doubt, with fullest and most satisfying heights of celestial security and blessedness light upon the heart of a conscious be- that he looked with an eye of pity on our liever--and yet may it be addressed, and sinful habitation-it was from a scene where with pertinency too, to men under their first beings of a holy nature surrounded him, and earliest visitations of seriousness. For and the full homage of the Divinity was give me an acquaintance of whom I know rendered to him, and in the ecstacies of his nothing more than that his face is towards fellowship with God the Father, all was Zion-give me one arrested by a sense of peace, and purity, and excellence-it was guilt and of danger, and merely groping from this that he took his voluntary deparAnd it was not the parade his way to a place of enlargement-give ture, and went out on his errand to seek me a soul not in peace, but in perplexity, and to save us. and in the midst of all those initial difficul- of an unreal suffering that he had to enties which beset the awakened sinner, ere counter; but a deep and a dreadful endurChrist shall give him light-give me a la-ance-it was not a triumphant promenade bouring and heavy laden sinner, haunted through this lower world, made easy over by the reflection, as if by an arrow sticking all its obstacles by the energies of his Godfast, that the mighty question of his eter- head; but a conflict of toil and of strenuousnity is yet unresolved. There are many I ness-it was not an egress from heaven on fear amongst you to whom this tremendous a journey brightened through all its stages uncertainty gives no concern-but give me by the hope of a smooth and gentle return; one who has newly taken it up, and who, but it was such an exile from heaven as in the minglings of doubt and despondency, made his ascent and his readmittance there has not found his way to any consolation- the fruit of a hard won victory. We have and even with him may it be found, that nothing but the facts of revelation to guide the same reason which strengthens the hope or to inform us, and yet from these we most of an advanced Christian, may well inspire assuredly gather, that the Saviour, in stepthe hope of him who has still his Christian-ping down from the elevation of his past ity to find, and thus cast a cheering and a comforting influence on the very infancy of his progress. For if it was in behalf of a careless world that the costly apparatus of redemption was reared-if it was in the full front and audacity of their most determined rebellion, that God laid the plan of reconciliation-if it was for the sake of men sunk in the very depths of ungodliness, that he constructed his overtures of peace, and sent forth his Son with them amongst our

eternity, incurred a substantial degradation that when he wrapped himself in the humanity of our nature, he put on the whole of its infirmities and its sorrows-that for the joy which he renounced, he became acquainted with grief, and a grief, too, commensurate to the whole burden of our world's atonement-that the hidings of his Father's countenance were terrifying to his soul-and when the offended justice of the Godhead was laid upon his person, it re

1

Christ has there ascended on the wings of victory-and he is now sitting at God's right hand, amid all the purchased triumphs of his obedience--and the toil, and the conflict, and the agony, are now over-and from that throne of mediatorship to which he has been exalted, is it his present office to welcome the approaches of all who come, and to save to the uttermost all who put their trust in him. And is it possible, we would ask, my brethren, is it possible that he who died to atone, now that he lives, will not live to make intercession for us? Can the love for men which bore him through a mighty and a painful sacrifice, not be strong enough to carry him onwards in peace and in triumph to its final consummation? Will he now abandon that work which his own hands have so laboriously reared?---or leave the cause for which he has already sustained the weight of such an

quired the whole strength of the Godhead | then, and compare it with the state of matto sustain it. What mean the agonies of the ters now. garden? What mean the bitter cries and complainings of abandonment upon the cross? What meaneth the prayer that the cup might pass away from him, and the struggle of a lofty resolution with the agonies of a mighty and unknown distress, and the evident symptoms of a great and toilsome achievement throughout the whole progress of this undertaking, and angels looking down from their eminences, as on a field of contest where a great Captain had to put forth the travailing of his strength, and to spoil principalities and powers, and to make a show of them openly? Was there nothing in all this, do you think, but the mockery of a humiliation that was never felt-the mockery of a pain that was never suffered the mockery of a battle that was never fought? No, my brethren, be assured that there was, on that day, a real vindication of God's insulted majesty. On that day there was the real transference of an aveng-endurance, in the embryo and unfinished ing hand, from the heads of the guilty to the head of the innocent. On that day one man died for the people, and there was an actual laying on of the iniquities of us all. It was a war of strength and of suffering in highest possible aggravation because the war of elements which were infinite. The wrath which millions should have borne, was all of it discharged. Nor do we estimate aright what we owe of love and obligation to the Saviour, till we believe, that the whole of that fury, which if poured out upon the world, would have served its guilty generations through eternity-that all of it was poured into the cup of expiation.

state of an abortive undertaking? Will he cast away from him the spoils of that victory for which he bled; and how can it be imagined for a moment, but by such dark and misgiving hearts as ours, that he whose love for a thankless world carried him through the heat and the severity of a contest that is now ended, will ever, with the cold and forbidding glance of an altered countenance spurn an inquiring world away from him?

The death of a crucified Saviour, when beheld under such a view, is the firm stepping stone to confidence in a risen Saviour. You may learn from it that his desire and A more adequate sense of this might not your salvation are most thoroughly at one. only serve to awaken the gratitude which Of his good-will to have you into heaven, slumbers within us, and is dead--it might he has given the strongest pledge and dealso, through the aid of the argument in my monstration, by consecrating, with his own text, awaken and assure our confidence. If blood, a way of access, through which sinwhen we were enemies, Christ ventured on ners may draw nigh. And now, that as our an enterprise so painful--if, when loathsome forerunner, he is already there--now that outcasts from the sacred territory of hea- he has gone up again to the place from ven, he left the abode of his Father, and which he arose--now that to the very place exchanged love, and adoration, and con- which he left to die, and that, that the bargenial felicity among angels, for the hatred rier to its entrance from our world may be and persecution of men-if, when the ago- moved away, he has ascended alive and in nies of the coming vengeance were still be- glory, without another death to endure, for fore him, and the dark and dreary vale of death has no more the dominion over himsuffering had yet to be entered upon, and he will ever he do any thing to close that enhad to pass under the inflictions of that trance which it has cost him so much to sword which the eternal God awakened open? Will he thus throw away the toil against his Fellow, and he had still to give and the travail of his own soul, and reduce himself up to a death equivalent in the to impotency that apparatus of reconciliaamount of its soreness to the devouring fire, tion which he himself has reared, and at an and the everlasting burnings, which but for expense, too, equal to the penance of many him believers would have borne-if, when millions through eternity? What he died to all this had yet to be travelled through, he begin, will he not now live to carry fornevertheless, in his compassionate longing ward; and will not the love which could for the souls of men, went forth upon the force a way through the grave to its acerrand of winning them to himself,-let us complishments-now that it has reached just look to the state of matters in heaven the summit of triumph and of elevation

has passed away. He will not turn with indifference and distaste from that very fruit which he himself has fought for. But if for guilt in its full impenitency, he dyed his garments, and waded through the arena of contest and of blood---then should the most abandoned of her children begin a contrite movement towards him, it is not he who will either break the prop for which he feels, or quench his infant aspiration. He will look to him as the travail of his own soul, and in him he will be satisfied,

But

which he at present occupies, burst forth | lity upon that contest, the triumph of which and around the field of that mighty enter- is awaiting him; but the bitterness of which prise, which was begun in deepest suffering, and will end in full and finished glory? This is a good argument in all the stages of a man's Christianity. Whether he has found, or is only seeking--whether he be in a state of faith, or in a state of inquiry--whether a believer like Paul and many of the disciples that he was addressing, or an earnest and convinced sinner groping the way of deliverance, and labouring to be at rest, there may be made to emanate from the present circumstances of our Saviour, and the position that he now occupies, an argument either to perpetuate the confidence where it is, or to inspire it where it is not. If, when an enemy, I was reconciled, and that too by his death--if he laid down his life to remove an obstacle in the way of my salvation, how much more, now that he has taken it up, will he not accomplish that salvation? It is just fulfilling his own desire. It is just prospering forward the very cause that his heart is set upon. It is just following out the facilities which he himself has opened and marching onward in glorious procession, to the consummation of those triumphs, for which he had to struggle his way through a season of difficulties that are now over. It is thus that the believer reasons himself into a steadier assurance than before--and peace may be made to flow through his heart like a mighty river--and resting on the foundation of Christ, he comes to feel himself in a sure and wealthy place--and the good-will of the Saviour rises into an undoubted axiom--so as to chase away all his distrust, and cause him to delight himself greatly in the riches of his present grace, and in the brightening certainty of his coming salvation.

We know not what the measure of the sinfulness is of any who now hear us. we know, that however foul his depravity, and however deep the crimson dye of his manifold iniquities may be, the measure of the gospel warrant reaches even unto him. It was to make an inroad on the territory of Satan, and reclaim from it a kingdom unto himself, that Christ died-and I speak to the farthest off in guilt and alienation amongst you-take the overture of peace that is now brought to your door, and you will add to that kingdom which he came to establish, and take away from that kingdom which he came to destroy. The freeness of this Gospel has the honour of him who liveth and was dead for its guarantee. The security of the sinner and the glory of the Saviour, are at one. And with the spirit of a monarch who had to fight his way to the dominion which was rightfully his own, will he hail the returning allegiance of every rebel, as a new accession to his triumphs, as another trophy to the might and the glory of his great undertaking.

But, amid all this latitude of call and of invitation, let me press upon you that alternative character of the Gospel, to which I And this view of the matter is not only have often adverted. I have tried to make fitted to heighten the confidence that is al-known to you, how its encouragements ready formed---but also to originate the con-rise the one above the other to him who fidence that needs to be inspired. It places moves towards it. But it has its correspondthe herald of salvation on a secure and lofty ing terrors and severities, which also rise vantage ground. It seals and authenticates the one above the other to him who moves the offer with which he is intrusted---and away from it. If the transgressor will not with which he may go round among the be recalled by the invitation which I have guiltiest of this world's population. It en- now made known to him, he will be rivetables him to say, that for guilt even in the ted thereby into deeper and more hopeless season of its most proud and unrepentant condemnation. If the offer of peace be not defiance, did Christ give himself up unto entertained by him, then, in the very prothe death--and that to guilt even in this portion of its largeness and generosity, will state of hardihood, Christ in prosecution of the provocation be of his insulting treathis own work has commissioned him to go ment in having rejected it. Out of the with the overtures of purchased mercy--mouth of the Son of man there cometh a and should the guilt which has stood its two-edged sword. There is pardon free as ground against the threatenings of power, the light of heaven to all who will. There feel softened and arrested by pity's prevent- is wrath, accumulated and irretrievable ing call, may the preacher of forgiveness wrath, to all who will not. "Kiss the Son, affirm in his Master's name, that he, who for the chief of sinners, bowed himself down unto the sacrifice, will not now, that he has arisen a Prince and a Saviour, stamp a nul

therefore, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way: when his wrath is kindled but a little, blessed only are they who put their trust in him."