be vindicated in the punishment of guilt, and yet the guilty saved, it is clear we are still in our sins, and have nothing to look for, but utter destruction. For reason, as well as Scripture, assure us that the wages of sin are death.

Consider well, then, to what a dreadful dilemma we are reduced by sin. If we take the pains to reflect at all upon our own condition, and if we don't, our guilt and danger are still the more extreme, we must either abandon ourselves to despair, and give ourselves up for lost, or turn to some stronghold as prisoners of hope.

But what hope is it possible for those, who are penetrated with a due sense of the ill-desert of sin, to lay hold of, but that which is set before us in the Gospel? To God, as he is in himself, we cannot flee for salvation. For God, according to every view which reason leads us to form of him, is a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity. Unless, then, there be some mediator between God and man, able and willing to save us-some sacrifice or sin sufficiently meritorious to bear our transgressions; and, by suffering in our stead, to satisfy divine justice, the natural consequences of iniquity must fall upon our own heads, and prove our eternal ruin. Thus, you see, their is no alternative between believing in some satisfaction, or atonement being made for the sins of mankind, and abandoning ourselves to utter despair, to irremediable destruction.

The doctrine of an atonement, then, instead of being a gloomy, uncomfortable doctrine, repugnant to reason, as some have pretended, is the only sure ground of conso

lation to which a mind, oppressed with guilt, can flee for refuge, and so congenial to the best convictions of enlightened reason, so indispensably necessary to the situation and circumstances of mankind, that a religion destitute of this fundamental and important truth, could not be the religion of sinners.

What reason, therefore, have we to adore the unsearchable riches of the grace of God, who hath set forth his Son to be the propitiation for our sins, and not for our's only, but for the sins of the whole world? When there was no eye to pity, nor hand to help us— when the redemption of the soul was so precious, that it must have ceased for ever, and no created being in earth or heaven could be found worthy to undertake the arduous work of our salvation, God was pleased to say, deliver them from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom, and laid our help upon one mighty to save.

For this purpose did he send his only-begotten Son into the world, not to condemn the world, as our guilty fears might have suggested, but that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life. He, who was the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person, was graciously pleased, for our sakes, to become poor, that we, through his poverty, might be made rich.

Though he was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God; yet, for our sakes, he made himself of no reputation, submitted to lead a life of unexampled scorn and persecution; and, at last,

freely gave himself up to the death for us all, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

By bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, and giving himself up to God, a sacrifice and an offering of a sweet smelling savour, He blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances that were against us, nailing them unto his cross. By suffering for sin, the just for the unjust, he magnified the law, and made it honourable, he fulfilled all righteousness, and rendered it consistent with the divine perfections, to extend, even to the guilty, those gracious effects of the divine. favour and complacency, which belong only to the good.

The avenging sword of justice being sheathed in his precious blood, the honour of the divine law was thereby completely vindicated, and the miserable consequences of iniquity fully demonstrated to the whole creation. Having become sin, or a sin-offering for us, though he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ-having borne our griefs, and redeemed us from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for us, he hath finished transgression and made an end of sin, made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in an everlasting righteousness. Henceforth, then, there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

Those who were sometimes alienated, and enemies in their minds, by wicked works, having no hope, and without God in the world, are made nigh by the blood

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of Christ. Now, therefore, they are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. They are delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. They are begotten again unto a lively hope of an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for all who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation; and when Christ, who is their life shall appear, they shall appear with him in glory.

Such are the sublime discoveries revealed in the Gospel, for the comfort and eternal consolation of perishing sinners. But, in the 4th place, recollect it can only be to those who cordially embrace them, that these glad tidings of great joy, these precious and reviving truths can be of any advantage. Christ is only become the author of eternal salvation to them who obey him, and before we can flee for refuge to the hope set before us in the Gospel, we must believe that he is able and willing to save to the uttermost, all that come to God through him.

If, then, we do not freely embrace Jesus Christ, as he is offered to us in the Gospel-if we rest not in him alone for salvation, and account him the only way, and the truth, and the life, without whom it is impossible to please God, we are still in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.

He is the only Mediator between God and man. He alone is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; and there is no other name given under heaven, or among men,

whereby a sinner can be saved, but the name Christ Jesus.

For such, therefore, as neglect or despise this great salvation-this last best gift of heaven to the human race, and account the blood of the covenant, wherewith they have been sanctified, an unholy thing, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin; the wrath of God abideth upon them; and the very greatness of the gift which they have so obstinately rejected, by enhancing their guilt, must aggravate their condemnation.

To those to whom the remedy proposed in the Gospel doth not become the savour of life unto life, it must prove the savour of death unto death; and this is the condemnation, the most awful which it is possible for human wickedness to bring upon itself, that light hath come into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil.

With such alarming considerations, on the one hand, and such glorious prospects on the other, can we hesitate for a moment, what line of conduct we are determined to pursue?

Would the wretch, just ready to perish, refuse to grasp at the smallest hope of salvation, held out for his relief, merely because he was not acquainted with every circumstance of the way in which it had come within his reach, or the manner in which it might contribute to his complete deliverance?

Would a criminal, under sentence of death, reject the offers of pardon, life, and liberty, because his gracious sovereign did not think proper to explain to him