which he will pardon and accept you; and that you must, by a lively faith, be interested in that death and in those merits before you can be a sharer in those high privileges. This my text clearly shews; the whole Levitical dispensation shews it; the whole of the prophetic writings shews it. It is the sum and substance of the New-Testament; every page exhibits it; every miracle attests it; every effusion of the Holy Spirit confirms it anew. Allow that Jesus Christ is the mighty Saviour on whom alone we must depend for salvation, and every thing in Revelation is in harmony: exclude him from that office, and the whole system of the Gospel becomes strange, disproportionate, and unintelligible. Too much is there attributed to Christ; too lofty names are given to him; too high expressions are used concerning him, if he is not the grand Mediator between God and man, and if salvation is not wholly to be obtained through faith in him.

Knowing, my brethren, that ere long you and I must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and being most deeply convinced of the awfulness of that solemn trial, I cannot but be very anxious that in that day we may be found justified and accepted before God. And I fear lest, through the pride of reasoning, or the carelessness of our hearts, we should be found to have neglected the great salvation which God has so graciously provided for us. It is not a matter of indifference whether our religion is conformed to the model God has given us. It becomes a crime of no light degree to neglect the salvation of God's appointment, a salvation purchased at so dear a rate as the sacrifice of his beloved Son;to reject (as all who neglect this salvation virtually do) the only Son of God, given as the greatest benefit ever conferred on mankind. My brethren, 1 entreat you by the whole scope of Revelation, which tends to exalt Christ as the only Saviour; by all the great and glorious things which are related of him in Scripture; by the miraculous powers with which he was endowed; by the agony and pain of his most precious death; by his glorious resurrection and ascension; by the coming of

the Holy Ghost to testify of him;-I entreat you, by every thing which was held dear and sacred among the primitive Christians, who willingly sealed their attachment to him by their blood;-think not lightly of him who was wounded for our transgressions, who was bruised for our iniquities. In our estimation of Christ there can be no medium. Either he must be All in All in our esteem; our Propitiation, our Intercessor, our Redeemer, our Saviour, our Life, our King, our Lord; or he must be degraded to the level of a common man; and in this case, we vainly endeavour to free ourselves from one difficulty by encountering a multitude of others which would render the whole of Revelation nugatory, and its system irrational. If we ascend up to heaven and place ourselves before, the dread tribunal of God, there Jesus Christ holds the same rank and high dignity which he claimed upon earth: there the angels adore him continually;there he sits at the right hand of God, in all the honour of the Divine Majesty;-there he rules Lord of the heaven above; the keys of death and hell are put into his hands; he openeth, and no man shutteth; he shutteth, and no man openeth. Now he offers to be our Almighty Saviour: O let none here be found at that great day to have rejected this salvation!

Would you then pay due respect to the Saviour, the foundation must be laid in a deep sense of your need of salvation, and in a clear view of your obligations to him. When the soul is properly sensible of its weakness, its unworthiness, its defilement, its inability to do any thing good, it will receive with joy the glad tidings that God has provided a Saviour, even his only begotten Son. Then will he be the principal object in our esteem. No words will be strong enough to express our gratitude to Him and to the Father. We shall humbly place our trust and confidence on him: we shall commit our souls into his hands: we shall rest with holy hope on his promises: we shall feel an inexpressible love to his name: we shall consider ourselves as no longer our own but

his, bound to serve him with our bodies and souls which are his: we shall cheerfully make every sacrifice which he requires, and comply readily with every precept he gives us. His love will constrain us to a ready, impartial, and constant obedience. His mercy will elevate our highest hopes. His goodness will gild the whole scene of life. Christ will be all in all to us. Daily shall we make application to him for wisdom, grace, and strength; and daily shall we praise him for the communication of his grace, and the hopes of his glory: in a word, we shall possess a new life in Christ; old things will have passed away-our careless, superficial, cold form of religion-and all things will have become new; and all things will be "of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ." "For he hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

This day, this all-important day, on which we celebrate the grandest and most interesting transaction which ever took place in this theatre of the world, ought strongly to direct our thoughts to the nature and end of that great event. May the prophet's view of it be ours, while with mingled emotions of wonder, love, and joy, we contemplate the Son of God wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities! With the Apostle may we exclaim as we reflect on the length and breadth, the height and depth, of the love of Christ here manifested; "God forbid that 1 should glory save in the Cross of Christ, by whom I am crucified to the world and the world to me!" And, with the whole chorus of angels and the spirits of the just made perfect in heaven, may we say with unutterable gratitude and affection, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing; for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, and hast made us kings and priests unto our God. Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." Amen.

SERMON XXI.

ON THE PEACE ARISING FROM TRUST IN GOD.

Isaiah xxvi. 3.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.

IT might be thought, that in a world so full of troubles and evils as the present, a proposal to keep the mind in perfect peace would be received with serious attention at the least; with eagerness, if it promised to be successful, and, if made in the name and by the authority of God, with the most confident expectation of the blessing. Nothing can be more evident than that men stand greatly in need of a support upon which to rest their troubled minds. All are exposed to distress in various ways; from severe and painful disappointments; from still more serious calamities; and from fears and forebodings of evil, which are often as painful as the realities themselves. Nay, a very considerable number are actually suffering under trials which threaten continually to overwhelm them. Peace is more or less

a stranger to the bosom of them all. They live in a state of restless agitation, far, very far, from the calm and quiet which they crave; and yet, even in this state of mind, there are but few who will give that welcome to the promises of the Bible which, from the nature and design of them, we might so reasonably expect. They want peace, but they do not think of finding it there. I speak not here of unbelievers, but of persons who, in a general way, give credit to the revelation of God. Many, even of these, will go on sorrowing in their afflictions without hope, as if there were really no hope for them: and, while the short and sure road to peace is marked out, by God himself, in the Scriptures; while the Gospel, which they hold in their hands, sets the object of their wants and wishes in full view before them; they make as little use of that Gospel in their distress, have as little expectation of relief, or support, or comfort from it, as if they were infidels and heathens. The fact will not be disputed, but how must it be accounted for? Chiefly I conceive from the very low and false ideas which men entertain of the nature and design of religion. They do not consider it as a remedy which the mercy of God provides for all the miseries of our condition. They view it not as his manifestation of grace and good-will to man, but rather as a system of painful duties which he requires them to discharge. Looking first at the self-denial and sacrifices which it demands, and forming their conceptions of its nature from these views, they consider it rather as adding to their burdens, as calculated, by the heavy obligations which it imposes, to produce deeper gloom and more painful anxiety, and thus to increase and aggravate their distresses; than as contributing in any way to their consolation, or as likely to promote the peace and happiness of their lives. This is indeed the impression which minds corrupt like ours would be apt, in the first instance, to receive from so pure and holy a religion. Its contrariety to their own nature would seem to afford but little hope of comfort;