penalty of God's violated law, is one of the peculiarities of the Bible. Upon this all its addresses proceed-this is the state which is taken for granted, as sufficiently proved by the voice of conscience in the culprit, and the relation in which he confessedly stands to an almighty and infinitely holy Creator and Judge.

3. And thus the way is prepared for the stupendous discovery of REDEMPTION IN THE IN

CARNATION AND SACRIFICE OF THE ONLY

BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD.1

The grand and all-important doctrine of the Christian religion is this, that God so loved the world, sunk in the guilt and ruin of sin, that he gave, as the free act of his infinite benevolence, his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.2 A discovery this so astonishing in all its parts, as to absorb and overwhelm every other, and to form the grand centre around which the system of Christian truth revolves.

The incarnation of the Son of God by the power

1 For Revelation makes known a plurality of persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost-of whose mode of subsistence indeed it gives no information, but whose offices in the economy of redemption it considers essential to every part of that dispensation; whilst the doctrine is so stated as to be in no respect inconsistent with the unity of the divine essence.

* John iii. 16.

of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary-the state of humiliation upon which he thus entered-his life of sorrow, reproach, ignominy-his bitter and unutterable sufferings in the garden of Gethsemane, before the bar of Pontius Pilate, and on the cross---his death by the most cruel, lingering and servile punishment of crucifixion, constitute that meritorious obedience and all-perfect sacrifice, by which sin is expiated, God reconciled to his rebellious creatures, and the Holy Ghost vouchsafed for the renovation of the human heart.

The proper vicarious nature of these sufferings, in the place and stead of the transgressor-the substitution of the divine surety and Redeemer, in the room of the guilty culpritthe atonement thus made to the moral righteousness of the great Governor of all-the display of that righteousness, so that God may now appear just and yet the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus,'-these topics prepare for THAT GREAT

DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ONLY,

which is the leading truth of the whole gospel, as the incarnation of Christ is the commanding discovery, and his meritorious death the great vindication of the divine holiness. This justification includes the remission of sins, and the being accounted and treated as righteous before

Rom. iii. 26.

God; and is followed by acceptance, adoption into his family, and the hope of everlasting life.

The exaltation of the Son of God to a state of glory and dominion, as mediator, at the right hand of the Father-where in our nature he sits, angels and principalities and powers being made subject to him,' till he shall come the second time to judge the quick and the dead-concludes and shuts up the doctrine of redemption; a doctrine this, which is peculiar to Revelation in a sense more strict than any of the preceding. For the unity and perfections of God might be faintly understood by the things that are made2—and the guilt and ruin of man have been in some measure felt and acknowledged in all ages-but the doctrine of redemption is a discovery as new as it is momentous-the great end, as it is the brightest glory, of the Christian religion,

4. The doctrine of THE PERSONALITY AND OPERATIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, follows upon the preceding; and is a part, or rather a consequence, of the redemption of Christ. For the Bible reveals a comforter and sanctifier, as well as a redeemer and saviour. The Holy Ghost, the third person in the Godhead, (for the tri-unity of the ever-blessed God seems only revealed so far as man's salvation is concerned),

11 Pet. iii. 22..

2 Rom. i. 20.

is the divine agent in the sanctification of man. He makes effectual to its true ends the love of God our heavenly Father, and the grace and sacrifice of Christ our great Redeemer. He abides with the church for ever, as its advocate, comforter, teacher, guide, sanctifier. It is by him the Holy Scriptures were indited, as we showed in the Lectures on the Inspiration ;' and it is by him the understanding of man is illuminated rightly to receive those records. His operations, secret to us, accompany the ministry of the word of Jesus Christ. These influences are not generally distinguishable, except in their effects, from the acts of our own mind. They stimulate the decisions of conscience, they assist and strengthen and inform the judgment; they gently and gradually sway the determinations of the will; they thus cure the distempers of the soul, and enable man to receive and use aright the records of the sacred Scriptures.

The renovation and new creation of man after God's image; his regeneration; his being restored in some measure to his original uprightness; his being re-cast, as it were, and made over again by a heavenly birth; his transition from spiritual death to spiritual life and activity-or, what is the same thing in other terms, his being formed to a love and pursuit of holi

'Lect. xii. and xiii.

ness, to a choice of spiritual things, to a hatred of sin as sin, to supreme love to God and Jesus Christ his Saviour, to resignation and acquiescence in God's holy will and sovereignty in providence and grace-in a word, his being trained to that peculiar kind of life which springs from gratitude and love, and produces the fruits of all good works-this mighty change, by the power of the Holy Ghost, is the grand operation attributed to that divine person in the Christian system.

5. The doctrines of THE SACRAMENTS AND

THE OTHER MEANS OF GRACE AND INSTRUC

TION may, perhaps, not appear, at first, of sufficient importance to accompany the prodigious discoveries of the preceding topics; and yet, so far as man is concerned, they are so essential to a right reception of the peculiar truths of Revelation, as to demand a brief notice.

For the immense blessings of redemption are not merely revealed, but a subordinate system of means is connected with them. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are appointed visibly to represent and seal; and convey, in some measure, to those who receive them rightly, the grace of God and his consolations of pardon and peace of conscience; as well as to be a bond of union and a badge of mutual faith amongst Christians. The spiritual repose of the sab