for the remission of sins. Those who expect to be saved, either wholly or in part, by their own righteousness, must have very low notions of what God requires of us; for if they had right views of the holiness of God, they could not imagine that anything they have done could of itself be worthy of his acceptance. If we have a true sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and of our own exceeding sinfulness, we shall not be disposed to take offence at the Scriptural doctrine of justification through the righteousness of Christ imputed unto us. Knowing that we have dealt very corruptly against God, and are abominable in his sight, we shall feel our need of a covert to hide us from the fury of his wrath; we shall acknowledge it as "a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners;” and having so much better opportunities of knowing our own wickedness than the wickedness of our brethren, we shall each be ready to add with the Apostle, "of whom I am chief."

But undoubtedly the more usual cause of offence at the Gospel of Christ, is the nature of the salvation which it offers to our acceptance. There are many who have no fault to find with the method of redemption, who yet take offence at the kind of salvation which Christ bestows upon his people, and which he is ever ready to bestow upon all who come unto him that they may be saved. If the salvation offered to us in the Gospel were simply the forgiveness of our sins, without any reference to the abandonment of sin, and if we had sufficient evidence that such an offer was really made

to us, few or none would take offence at it. When such a mutilated Gospel is preached, when an offer is made of free forgiveness, without reference to sanctification, many, doubtless, do take offence at this doctrine; but they take offence at it, not because they would have any objections to this offer, if they were satisfied of its reality, but because they are not satisfied of its reality; their consciences revolt at this perverted Gospel, as unworthy of the holiness of God; and, when they consult the Scriptures, they find reason to suspect that this is quite a different Gospel from that which our Saviour and his Apostles preached. And so it is. Jesus Christ never promised to any man that his sins should be forgiven, while his heart remained in a state of alienation from God. Those who have their sins forgiven through his name, are those who are united unto him as their Head, the members of his spiritual kingdom; and the spiritual kingdom which he came to establish, and into which he freely invites all men to enter, is a kingdom which has its laws as well as its privileges; one of its chief privileges being the ability to obey its laws. Our blessed Saviour does not say to us, Come unto me, and I will obtain for you the forgiveness of your sins, whatever your conduct may be, if you will but trust in me as your Redeemer from condemnation; but he says, Come unto me, and I will give you power to become the sons of God, not only the objects of his fatherly love, but also a willing people unto him. "I will save them," saith the Lord, " and I will cleanse them; so they shall be my people, and I will be their God."

It is at the holiness of the Gospel, still more than at the mysteriousness of its doctrines, or its exclusion of human merit, that the carnal mind generally stumbles; and the reason why it stumbles at this is, that it is enmity against God. It might bear the light of truth, but it cannot bear the light of holiness; it shrinks from it, and takes refuge from it either in unbelief or indifference. Men are not offended in Christ, because he proposes to deliver them from the wrath of God; for no man will choose damnation for its own sake; but because he proposes to deliver them from the power of sin. They do not wish any such deliverance; they look upon it, not as a gift, but as a deprivation; they love their bondage; and, however the prison-doors may be thrown open, the captives will not come out, because they have learned to prefer the gloom of their dungeon to the free light of heaven. They do not probably acknowledge, even to themselves, that this is the reason; they will contrive many excuses for their reluctance to avail themselves of the redemption provided for them; they will even throw the blame of their reluctance upon God, rather than upon themselves, alleging that he withholds from them that assistance of his Holy Spirit, without which they cannot be saved; but all such pleas are as groundless as they are impious. If they do not come forth out of the house of bondage, it is not because they cannot come out, for in the fact that God has commanded them to come out, they have a guarantee that the needful aid will not be wanting, but because, in the exercise of their own free choice, they prefer to stay in. They

would be very glad to be relieved from the consequences of sin, from that awful weight of wrath to come which hangs over the children of disobedience; but when Jesus Christ engages to shield them from the wrath of God, on condition that they place themselves under his teaching, and under the guidance of his Holy Spirit, they are offended. They are offended, not because they have any repugnance to justification, considered by itself; not because they have any serious objections to urge against the method of justification revealed in the Gospel; for such objections, there is every reason to believe, are, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, nothing more than pretences for continued indulgence in sin, but because justification is inseparably connected with regeneration.

I have mentioned some of the causes of offence which keep men from closing with the invitations of the Gospel, chiefly with the view of shewing, that on whatever pretence men refuse salvation, the refusal proceeds from a spirit of enmity to God, and consequently, that whenever offence is taken at Christ, there is wilful sin. God does not deal tyrannically with us; he does not act arbitrarily in making such a distinction between those who believe and those who reject the Gospel, and in ordaining our acceptance or refusal of that eternal life which is in his Son to be the turning-point of our destiny. If we are saved, it will not be by our own merit; but if we are lost, it will be by our own demerit; by our wilful rebellion against him whom in our consciences we cannot but acknowledge as our rightful Master; and if any of us are at last

found among that unhappy number, who shall have their places appointed with the devil and his angels, their doom will be embittered by the consciousness, that the judgment passed upon them is a just judgment. From this fearful doom there is but one way of escape; and that is by receiving Jesus Christ, as he is freely offered to us in the Gospel. "Blessed is he,

whosoever shall not be offended in him."

They alone can truly be called blessed who are not offended in Christ, but who, receiving the seed of his word into an honest and good heart, are enabled, through grace, to bring forth fruit, answering, in some measure, to the incorruptible seed that remaineth in them. All other blessedness is but a vain show, which, even at present, is scarcely real, and which will soon lose what reality it has, and leave no more trace behind it than a flake of snow that falls into the stream, and melts away in the water. The blessedness of the Christian alone is satisfying; it alone is lasting. Through a living faith he is become, in the sight of God, one with Christ; and, through this his union with Christ, he is delivered from the wrath of God; for "there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." And not only is he redeemed from wrath, but he is become an object of God's distinguishing favour; "the Father himself loveth him;" for he is well.pleased in his Son, and well pleased, for his Son's sake, with all who belong to him. He was not offended at his Master's lowliness; and he is made an heir of his Master's glory," an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ." He was not offended at the mystery of godli