And then, lastly, we may learn, that it is by the resurrection of our Lord, that he removed every bar to our intercourse with heaven, for the power of Christ's resurrection reaches to all the evils which obstruct our approach te God, and hinder our filial fellowship with him. Christ, when be re appeared from the rocky barrier that confined him, removed every obstacle to the free and filial fellowship of the believer's soul with him. The hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, Christ took it away. The law which had laid its arrest, and pronounced its curse upon us, Christ fulfilled it, and closed its mouth for ever. The great enemy, the devil, Christ trampled him under his feet, spoiled his principalities and powers, leading him that had led into captivity captive. Death, Christ foiled it in the very act of bursting from its grasp. Sin, Christ abolished both its guilt and its power, when, as the firstbegotten from the dead, he exhibited the risen human frame which sin had never sullied.

F But I observe, secondly, that Christ may be said to apply the fruits of his passion by the virtue of HIS PREVAILING INTERCESSION.

There were two parts of the priestly office which Christ had to perform. First, to render atonement for the sins of the people; and, secondly, to enter into the holy of holies, to spread the blood of sprinkling on the mercy-seat, and to make intercession. When, therefore, the Lord Jesus had offered his own blood on the altar of justice at Calvary, and had risen from the dead in proof of the acceptance of his atonement, he ascended into heaven, and took his seat on the right hand of God, to prosecute his work as a Saviour, by his prevailing intercession. And there he sits to discharge the same gracious office which he took upon him when he returned to the heavenly courts, on his ascension, ever living and ever labouring to forward the salvation of those that trust in him.

Now I would divide what I have to say of Christ's intercession into three parts. First, I will shew how Christ intercedes; secondly, shew upon what ground he intercedes; and, thirdly, shew how his intercession is available in applying the fruits of his redemption.

First, then, how does Christ intercede for his people? He interceded once, as we know, in audible language; falling down, and stretching out his hands, and addressing his heavenly Father in articulate words of prayer and supplication. But he intercedes to-day in the very act of appearing in the heavenly presence. He has no need to utter a single word; his risen and glorified human frame is enough: for how came it there but as the purchase of his infinite merits, and as the representative of those for whom he died and lives to plead; Christ's mere appearance in heavenly places is a constant and prevailing act of intercession. He has only to shew himself; for his flesh is a constant remembrance of the condition of those of whose nature he is a partaker. He has only to point to his pierced side, and to the prints of the nails, to establish the claim which he has to urge upon the compassion and justice of heaven. Were it possible that the Father ever should forget the relationship in which redeemed sinners stand to him, a single glance at the form that was once born in a manger, and which agonized and died upon the cross, would be enough to interest his sympathies on our behalf. So that when we speak of the act of Christ's intercession, we refer to the appearance of his body in heavenly places

as our Surety who has rendered satisfaction for us, and treasured up his merits for us; and who by the very form which he wears to-day, makes a mute, but pathetic and prevailing appeal.

And then if it be inquired, upon what grounds does the Saviour intercede, what is the ground of his intercession, it has been already stated: the ground of Christ's advocacy is the blood he shed. Without this oblation to shew before God, his intercession would have been of no avail. It was Christ's satisfaction at Calvary which qualified him to intercede. Thus the typical high-priest first shed the blood of the sacrifice; but when he went into the holy of holies he carried the blood with him, and sprinkled it on the justiceseat. In like manner Jesus carried with him into those heavenly places, of which the Jewish sanctuary was the type, his own blood, and held it up and sprinkled with it both the mercy-seat and the justice-seat. As we read in Hebrews, ix. "But Christ being come an high-priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered at once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Christ entered in, and stood before the justice-seat, and said, "I have paid all; I have suffered all: here is the blood I shed: I claim my reward." His reward consists in the salvation of penitent and believing sinners from amongst men: and in consideration of the appeal thus urged, "who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is ever at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." He pleads upon the ground of the propitiation he offered. Had he not himself been a propitiatory sacrifice, offered up to the Father's justice, he could not have been an advocate.

And surely, beloved, it is a thought full of encouragement to us, to know that in those heights, to which, if we are believers, we often raise our wishful eyes, and where alone we can find the rest our weary spirits are in search of, we have One unceasingly engaged for us. We know, that though the Lord Jesus is surrounded by the angelic hosts, and endless millions of shining spirits wait upon his slightest wish, and vie to do him service, yet he lives not in the supine enjoyment of his rich splendour, but is ever actively engaged for us his afflicted and tempted people. "Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him;" for he is an Advocate that never slumbers: we may sleep, but he wakes; his eyes are always watching his people; his hand is continually protecting them: his ever-interceding suppliancy is continually going on in their behalf. While he pleads for them they are safe. He interposes, also, a rampart between the wrath of God, and between those who are this day in this place. And if we would believe it, the duration of this world, lying as it is in the embrace of the wicked one, and the long-suffering which is exercised towards sinners, are chiefly applicable to the advocacy which Christ employs in their behalf. He is waiting to see if any will hear his voice, and come to him, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to Christ.

And now I proceed to specify some respects in which Christ's advocacy acts. First, in virtue of his intercession Christ lives to wield the sceptre of grace, and to conquer subjects to himself. He claims them as the price for which he covenanted when he undertook the championship of the subjugated world, and

But, secondly, it must be observed, that God, who is the only true object of prayer, has rendered it a matter of positive and universal duty. He has imposed it, by his own command, upon all the people of the earth. The obligation, my brethren, cannot but be reasonably and properly inferred from those relations which are revealed as essentially existing between man and God. Man, for example, being the creature, and God the Creator-man being the preserved, and God the Preserver-man being the recipient, and God the Benefactor-man being the subject, and God the Governor-man being the criminal, and God the Judge.

There are, besides, positive and distinct commands, the import of which it is perfectly impossible to mistake, and the force of which it is perfectly impossible to avoid. We are taught, for example, that men are to " pray always," and "not to faint;" that they are to "watch" and "to pray;" that they are to "continue instant in prayer;" that they are to " pray without ceasing;" that "in every thing they are to pray always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit ;" and that in every thing they are to "make known their requests by prayer and supplication, with thanksgivings unto God." Directions are given upon every point connected with the ordained employment; misapprehension with respect to which we might conceive perfectly impossible: directions, for example, as to the manner; the medium through which prayer is to be performed through the merit of the Atoning Sacrifice: directions as to the scenes in which prayer is to be performed-in the silence of the secret chamber, amid the enjoyments of the social circle, and in the assemblies of the great congregation and directions as to the spirit in which prayer is to be performed -the spirit of humility, the spirit of faith, the spirit of earnestness, and the spirit of perseverance.

My brethren, the law which Jehovah has been pleased to reveal on the subject of prayer, must be regarded as involving every thing which can guide, and govern, and animate, and inspire. And strange and wondrous, indeed, it is, that to a law, involving, as it does, all that is overwhelming in power, as well as all that is melting in tenderness, men do not bow at all times in blended adoration and love. For ourselves, my brethren, be it our great and constant desire, to render the tribute that is due to Him; be it our frequent invitation one to another, "O come, let us worship and fall down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker:" and let it be our highest ambition, that we may live and die as men of prayer; that at length we may be transferred, as the monuments of its triumphant efficacy, to other and nobler worlds, where our employments will be those of rapturous and everlasting praise.

We have offered, my brethren, these brief observations upon the nature of the employment, the importance of which is assumed, for the purpose of rendering the way clear and easy for that which ought to be more impressive and more solemn, and to which I am now to request your attention at large, in the second proposed object in our address, namely, THE NATURE OF THE HABIT, THE INDULGENCE OF WHICH IS CHARGED. "Thou restrainest prayer before God." Instead of submitting to, and absolutely obeying, the injunctions which God has imposed upon thee, and imposed upon all mankind, thou art guilty of holding back and preventing the exercise of supplication; although

thou art placed in such circumstances as to call thee to it properly, with more than common eagerness and intensity of soul. Without examining the case of Job particularly, it is our purpose here to notice some of those various modes in which men are pre-eminently guilty of restraining prayer before God. I shall make no apology, my friends, for using the utmost plainness of personal application; being desirous upon this occasion to declare faithfully, in this matter, what is the whole counsel of God.

And first, you observe, he restrains prayer before God who altogether omits prayer. This is an assertion so perfectly plain and palpable, that not a single proof need be urged in elucidation, or in demonstration of it now. Are there indeed any who indulge the habit to such an extent as this; and who contract the guilt in such a vileness and such a blackness as this? Why there are multitudes, not merely in those desolate and abandoned countries where the true God is excluded and unknown, but even in those countries where he has been revealed, and where he is openly professed, with regard to whom there is reason to fear, that their voice never utters the language, and their bosom never feels the spirit, of prayer unto Him from whom alone all blessings flow. In our own country it is notorious, that a vast proportion of our crowded population habitually and entirely neglect the public devotions of the house of God: and many, my brethren, are the families, who dream not of erecting an altar for the morning and the evening sacrifice: and many are the chambers tenanted by beings who hallow not their privacy, and who wake and slumber, and rise and retire, as if there was no Creator to adore, no transgressions to grieve over, no blessings to crave, no hell to avoid, no heaven to acquire, and no souls to be redeemed. There are, probably, not a few in the sanctuary of God to-night, whose social hearths, and whose secret chambers, all desolate and all shrineless, attest the awful charge. Prayerless men and prayerless women, I confront and I challenge you; and I exhort you now to ponder, and to repent, and to amend, lest that God whom you have insulted by your neglect, should launch upon you the lightnings of that fiery indignation, from whose stroke no victim can recover. Again, secondly, he restrains prayer before God who engages but seldom in prayer. In the passages which have been quoted in the earlier part of our address, with respect to the obligation of prayer, you cannot but have observed how they involve, at the same time, the duty and the importance of frequency. Men are to " pray always and not to faint;" they are to "continue instant in prayer;" they are to "pray without ceasing ;"" in every thing to make known their requests by prayer and supplication unto God." And truly, my brethren, if there ought to exist any proportion between the frequent reiteration of prayer, and the frequent recurrence of want, then, as want is constantly recurring, so supplication ought to form the appropriate and the regular habit of the life.

Such frequency you cannot but observe, further, is beautifully exemplified to us in the history of those holy men, who are presented to us as models for our constant imitation. You will remember, for example, the case of him who is called by the title of "the man after God's own heart." It was his resolution, “As for me I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me:" "Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud; and he shall hear my voice." And upon another occasion, as we find in Psalm cxix. he exclaims, "At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee, because of thy righteous

MOTIVES FOR THE CULTIVATION OF A CHRISTIAN DEPORTMENT.

REV. J. PARSONS,

SURREY CHAPEL, FEBRUARY 3, 1835.

"Do all things without murmurings and disputings: that ye may be blameless and harmless the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain."-PHILIPPIANS, ii. 14-16.

THE conversion of man to God, my brethren, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, is justly recognized as a great and mighty change; removing the soul from the danger to which unpardoned guilt had exposed it, and imparting an interest in those blessings, the value of which is commensurate with immortality. Yet it must not be supposed, that those upon whom the work of conversion has been accomplished, do not require frequent caution and exhortation, instrumentally to prevent their return to pollution; and to sustain them in the cultivation of those principles and habits, which alone are consistent with the design of their holy vocation. The circumstances, the arrangements, and the relationships of their spiritual existence, render it needful that oftentimes their minds should be "stirred up by way of remembrance:" and he who conceiving himself to be the subject of divine grace, yet regards as unnecessary and uncalled for, the enforcement of obligations and responsibilities, is in imminent danger of a grievous and awful fall.

You doubtless have observed, that the addresses of the inspired apostles directed to those professing Christians in whose conversion they had been instrumental, and for whose spiritual prosperity they yearned, consisted in a great measure in exhortations to the practice of those various duties which the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ has enjoined. It of course becomes Christians, in every age and every circumstance of the world, diligently to ponder, and carefully to conform to the spirit of their beautiful and tender appeals, being satisfied only as they conform to their injunctions, following, to their full extent, "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, lovely, and of good report.”

It is our intention this evening, to endeavour to inculcate the impression of one of these inspired addresses upon you, as professing believers in the Gospel of the grace of God. And the exhortation, which in these words was addressed by the Apostle to the Philippian church, was one which from the circumstances of the age, and the requirements of the church, may be most powerfully commended to you: "Do all things without murmurings and disputings: that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;