does this prove that he is not guilty of crime against a parent ? Just as much, fellow-sinner, as your morality proves that you are not a sinner in the sight of God-and no more.

Second. In the way of salvation in the gospel, it is assumed that your amiable traits of character are not holiness, and that they cannot be construed as religion. Why should they be any more than the innocence of the lamb, or the gentleness of the dove? They have no more reference to religion in your own mind; they do nothing to make you religious. They do not lead you to prayer, or to a religious life, or to the worship of God, or to the love and imitation of the Saviour-more meek, and gentle, and amiable by far than you can pretend to be; nor do they lead you to prepare for the world to come. Besides, you may not be as amiable as you think you are. Others may see things in you which you do not see; and God may see more than all. Your real character may have been little tested, and you may yet be in circumstances where you yourself may be surprised to find how much pride, and envy, and irritability, and perverseness, and petulance, and selfishness, there was lurking in your own soul.

Thirdly. In the way of salvation in the gospel, it is assumed that your personal accomplishments are not religion; and that they do not prove that you have any holiness of heart. It assuredly does not demonstrate that you are a child of God, whatever praises it may elicit from men, if you can sing well, or dance well, or play well on an instrument of music; if you are fitted to adorn the most polished circles, or if by the grace of movement, or the charms of conversation, you attract the admiration of all. Some of these things are well in their way, and are desirable; but why should any one deceive himself in regard to them? They are not religion; they cannot be made to be religion.

Fourthly. It is assumed in the way of salvation in the gospel, that there is no native germ of goodness or holiness in your heart; that there is none implanted by baptism that can be so developed or cultivated as to become religion. Holiness, if it ever exists in the human soul, is to have a beginning there. It is not there by nature. You may cultivate your intellectual powers, but the result will not be religion; you may cultivate amiableness of temper, but it is not religion; you may cultivate gracefulness of manner or of person, but it is not religion; you may cultivate morality, but it is not religion. And so of baptism. It has its advantages, and they who have been baptized should bless God for it; but it is not given to man, whether clothed in

sacred vestments or not-to man, though ministering at the altar, and in the name of God, to implant a principle of grace, or a germ of piety in the soul. God's Spirit alone creates life there; and it is done through the instrumentality of truth, and not by an outward ordinance. Baptism has imparted nothing to you that can be certainly cultivated into piety, or that will grow into the love of God.

And, fifthly, then it is assumed in the way of salvation in the gospel, that your heart is evil. It has by nature no religion. It has nothing which can grow up into religion; nothing which can be a substitute for it. It is proud, selfish, vain, worldly,

polluted, wicked, unlike God.

This may seem to be a dark picture, but it lies at the foundation of the way of salvation as revealed in the gospel; and on this sad fact the whole plan is based. All men, as is supposed in this plan, have failed to yield obedience to the reasonable requirements of the law of God. The violation of that law is held to be the first act of a child when he becomes a moral agent; the continued act of his life, unless he is renewed; the last act on his dying pillow. His whole career is regarded as one act of rebellion, because he is selfish, neglects God, is proud, is cherishing enmity against his Maker, and is opposed to all efforts to produce better feelings. In innumerable instances, .his want of holiness, this destitution of love to God, goes forth in acts of falsehood, impurity, blasphemy, theft, murder, adultery, oppression, and implacable individual and national war. In support of this view of the character of man, the sacred Scriptures assert the naked fact, claiming to be the testimony of God. The Bible has, moreover, recorded, under Divine guidance, the history of the world for more than two-thirds of its continuance, and presents no exception to this melancholy account of men. Profane writers, with no reference to any theological debate, and nine-tenths of them with no expectation that their testimony would ever be adduced to settle questions of divinity, have presented the same fact. Not one solitary historian, though coming from the midst of the people whose deeds are recorded, and designing to give the most favourable representation of their character, has exhibited a nation bearing any marks of holinessan individual that is like God. The world, the wide world, is apostate; and he must be worse than blind that would attempt to maintain that man by nature is fit for the kingdom of heaven.

On this broad fact, wide as the world, and prolonged as its history, the Christian way of salvation is based. Here is an

apostate province of God's empire. Rebellion has come upon the earth, though not as it came among the ranks of heaven. There it cut off a fixed number, all mature in wisdom and in strength. It would not spread; it could not be extended to successive tribes. Here it poisoned a fountain. It was amidst. God's works at first, but a little spring, pouring into a rill, but soon swelling to creeks, to rivers, to lakes, to oceans. An incalculable number would descend from the first pair of apostates, and with prophetic certainty it could be foretold that not one of their descendants would escape the contagion to the end of time, however long the apostate world might stand. To all ages it would be the same. On each mountain, in each valley, in each cavern-on each extended and fertile plain—in all lands, barbarous or civilized-under every complexion in which man would appear-white, black, copper, olive, or mixed,—it would be the same. Crime would be heaped on crime; whole nations would bleed; whole tribes would wail; one generation of sinners would tread on another generation, and then themselves expire-and all die as enemies of the God that made them.

We need not embarrass ourselves by inquiring how this came upon us, or why this is so. It is the fact with which we are concerned, not the mode. The grand question is not why this is so; or why this was permitted; or how we can reconcile it with the goodness of God, but how shall we escape? When a man is struggling in a current of mighty waters, it does nothing to facilitate his escape to be able to determine how he came there; nor would it help him if he could satisfy his own mind on the question why God ever made streams so that men could fall into them, and did not make every bank of granite or iron so that it would not give way.

The grand question is, how shall we escape? You will not escape if you remain in your present condition. Indifference is not safety; and unconcern is not salvation. It is not the way to be saved to give one's self no concern about it, or to suffer things to pass on as they are. If you remain as you are with a sinful and depraved heart-with no love to God-what can befall you but ruin? Without holiness you cannot be fit for heaven. For what world are you preparing?

It will not save you to murmur and complain at your lot, or to find fault with the Divine arrangements, or even reverently and devoutly to call these things mysterious. Scepticism saves no one from danger; murmuring saves no one; a sneer saves no one; contempt saves no one; nor does it save any one to call a truth a mystery. None of these things make you a better man ;

none do anything to fit you for heaven; none will make the sorrows of perdition more easy to be borne.

It will not save you to cultivate the graces of manner, or the accomplishments of life; to become more learned in the sciences, and a better critic of the productions of art; to make yourself more moral before men; to break off your external sins, or to put on the “form of godliness without its power." You may cultivate a bramble, but it will not be a rose; a rose, but it will not be a bird of Paradise; a bird of Paradise, but it will not be a gazelle; a gazelle, but it will not be a beautiful woman. You may polish brass, but it is not gold; and may set in gold a piece of quartz, but it is not a diamond :—and just as certain is it that none of the graces of native character which you can cultivate will ever become true religion. The evil lies deeper than this, and must be healed in another way. How this is may be explained hereafter. My point now is gained if I have shown you that the Christian way of salvation justly assumes as its basis that our race is by nature destitute of holiness; and if you are convinced, as I would wish you to be convinced, that it is not by works of righteousness which you have done that you can be saved.

SERMON X.

THE INQUIRY, WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?

ACTS xvi. 30.-"What must I do to be saved?"

IN the last discourse I endeavoured to show that God's plan of saving men is based on the fact that the race is by nature destitute of holiness. I illustrated this by showing that it is not meant that the race is held to be guilty of the sin of Adam; or that it is necessary in order to salvation to suppose that the sinner is as bad as he can be; or that he is guilty for not doing that which he has no power to do; or that there are no amiable qualities in the minds of men by nature, or that there is nothing that may, in any way, be commended. I showed that it is meant that there is in the heart by nature no real love to God ; no just appreciation of his character; no pleasure in the principles of his government; no desire to please him.

This is the condition, I suppose, in which the gospel finds man; this certainly is the assumption in regard to man in the way of salvation revealed in the gospel. This being supposed, the Scripture plan has, at least, consistency and meaning; this being denied, it has no consistency and no meaning. You can make nothing out of the gospel except on the supposition that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners;" except, in his own language, it be admitted that he "came to seek and to save that which was lost." He is not, then, in the path of salvation who does not feel and admit that he is a sinner, and who is not prepared to receive salvation as it has been provided for sinners.

We advance a step, then, at the present time, by considering the state of mind which exists when one, impressed with these truths, begins to feel that something must be done to save his own soul; the condition when one enters on the inquiry what he must do to be saved. I may not be able to state all that will. be necessary on this part of the subject in this discourse, but I would hope to be able to show you that this inquiry is at least rational and proper, and that it starts questions not beneath the attention of any.