we must be prepared for it by him in his own way. If ever we would be partakers of the merits of his death, stand before God in his righteousness, attain to his resurrection, and sit down with him in his kingdom, we must be faithful to his teaching, and receive him for our Lord' and King to reign over us, as well as our Priest to offer up his blood for the remission of our sins.

What he has done, and he alone could do, to recover us out of our lost state, and raise us from our death in trespasses and sins, has been briefly declared. What he has to do in us, and we must, of all necessity, do for ourselves, will appear under the two next heads. Let us consider,

II. The blessedness of making Peter's confession truly, and from the heart.

If you believed the curse of sin, and knew the state of your soul while the guilt of sin is upon you, with the same certainty that you read it in Scripture, what would you wish for? If you were following after righteousness, in order to find favour with God, and often terrified with the strictness of the law and the sight of your imperfection, what would give ease to your troubled thoughts? If you were tormented with the fear of death, lest it give you up to judgment, and saw heaven shut against you, what would you desire, and think deliverance in the case, but to have it opened to you, and the dread of condemnation removed from your heart and conscience? The necessity, you see, is urgent; help is greatly wanted, and must come from some powerful hand, to stand against all your doubts and misgivings. Then look for it where it is to be had. Look unto Jesus, supplying every need, and doing all for you that your souls can desire; living, dying, rising again, and ascending into heaven, and you with him, partakers of all he did, and all he is, when

you can say to him with a true faith, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Forgiveness, righteousness, peace, victory over sin, death, and hell, grace upon grace, and complete salvation, purchased with his own sweat and blood, without the counsel, will, or help of man; all is yours when you trust in him, and come unto God by him. Is not this blessedness a glorious hope for sinners, far beyond what we could expect or conceive? Yes; it is joy at the believer's heart, his portion from the Lord, and song of praise. He knows that Christ is the Lord's anointed for the salvation of his people; that this is the very thing he came from heaven to accomplish, wrought out for us with his labours and sufferings upon earth, sealed to us with his blood, offers to our acceptance, and will certainly put us in possession of, when we own and believe in him for it. I beseech you, know what you believe in him for. Do not expect less from him than he wants to give you; do not diminish one tittle from it, that you may possess your souls in peace, and rejoice in God your Saviour. And that you may stand fast upon this strong foundation of rest and assurance, I say likewise, do not pretend to add to it in the point of justification. Be careful to keep what Christ has done for you separate in your minds from any thing that he enables you to do for yourselves. What is the reason that we have no more enjoyment of Christ, so little sense of our obligations to him, so little love for him, and do so much less than we might, but because we do not keep our eyes and hearts steadily fixed upon him, as " the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," John, i. 29; and whatever we say, trust as much or more in ourselves than we do in him? The glory of our salvation is all his own, and he will not suffer it to be stained by any help of ours. He loves to see us walking in the faith of it, and devoted to him in obedience; but our great comfort and

ground of rejoicing is in himself, as "of God made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," 1 Cor. i. 30; and so long as we preserve this hope pure and unmixed, that he is our Jesus, our life, our all, we have an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast, and are so purged in his blood as to have no more conscience of sins, or trouble of mind on account of them, lest they should rise up against us at the day of judgment. So we are the blessed of the Lord, heirs of his grace, children of his kingdom, and happy in his favour; and whilst we glory only in Christ, laying all we do at his feet, and humbling ourselves in the dust before him, he says, to every believing soul, what he did to Peter, "Blessed art thou."

But, perhaps, your sins are great, and have been long continued in, and you are ready to harden yourself in wickedness with thinking there is no hope. What! not in "Christ, the Son of the living God?" Is there no hope for you in his bowels, in the sanctity of his life, in the merit of his death, in the might of his Godhead? What one blessing can you think of, which he has not in his heart for you, and power to bestow upon you? Why, his business in the world was to save sinners, and he has none but sinners to save. Hear what he saith himself, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance," Matt. ix. 13; and by repentance to faith, and by faith to an interest in him. He prayed for his murderers; and perhaps there was not one of the three thousand converted by St. Peter's first sermon, who had not joined in the cry against him, and consented to his death. What was it that touched their hearts but the preaching of Christ crucified? And what should hinder any of you from attaining to the same mercy which they did? If your unbelief does not, your sins need not; for his name to all generations is Jesus, the Saviour. He did much, that he might forgive much; and his right and power to

absolve the penitent is not less now he' is in heaven, than when he was on earth. Peter's confession will be as pleasing to him from your mouths as it was from his; and he only waits to hear it, to pronounce you as blessed as he can make you. To prevent mistake, and guard the doctrine which has been delivered from abuse,

III. Let us now consider in what way we are brought to it.

The confession to be made in order to this blessedness, the great point on which it turns, is, that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the living God;" that is, appointed of God to the office of saving us, and, as God, able to save us. When Peter confessed this, Christ told him, " flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." And I suppose, from hence, that the same faith is by the same revelation to all; not only, or chiefly, by the use of our own reason or understanding in what we read or hear, but by an inward, spiritual work. For though Peter might have known in some measure that he was the Christ, from his miraculous birth and actions, divine knowledge, authoritative teaching, and holy life, yet he is referred to a higher cause for power to make the confession he did. Outwardly, and with the lips, we may do so too; but, making it truly from the heart, to a change of our state, to newness of life, to the saving of the soul, is by help from God. Observe carefully in what method, and by what steps we come to this confession, and then you may be convinced that help is wanted, and some greater power than our own necessary to bring us to it.

"Christ, the Son of the living God," came down from heaven to save a world of sinners, to deliver us from the death and curse we were under for sin, by laying down his life for us. Then there is a depth of evil in sin, and

misery annexed to it, far exceeding what we could ever have thought of, since the Son of God must become man to save us from justice, and suffer the punishment we had deserved. This is one necessary step towards Christ. For, without the knowledge of sin, how deadly it is in its nature, and how hateful to God, we can neither understand the necessity of salvation from it, nor the greatness of the Saviour.

But you may be convinced of this, in some sort, without ever coming nearer to Christ, our looking out for a remedy. Your own sin, and the desert of it, has that been seen and lamented; insomuch, that you know, with infallible certainty and deep conviction, that whoever else is or is not, you yourself are a sinner, guilty of eternal death for your manifold breaches of the law of God, and that Christ must have died to save you from damnation if there had never been another man in the world?

Well, we will suppose you have taken this step too, and are now sensible both of the evil of sin, and of the greatness of your own in particular, and that something must be done to save you from the destruction of it. But where will you go with your sin, and what will you do in this extremity? Will you strive hard to get out of your danger, as well as you can, by your own endeavours? Or will you take another step forward, go to Christ with your soul, tell him of the danger of your case, and cast yourself wholly upon him for help and deliverance? If you do not, you know your sin to very little purpose, and as little of Christ, as little of yourself, your undone state, and miserable insufficiency, when you would be taking his work of omnipotence into your own hands.

Once more, do not go to Christ for less than you want, and he has to give; I mean, a perfect righteousness.