concern about this kind of knowledge; and then how can they live according to it, or come unto God by him? To prevent this, if it pleases God that you should hear me, I shall endeavour, with his help, to improve the words of the text,

I. By showing how precious Christ is.

II. What it is to stumble at him, and why so many do. Lord Jesus, raise up thy power and come among us, and with great might succour us. Send down the Holy Spirit of grace to prepare the hearts of all here present, to receive thee as the way, the truth, and the life; that in thee we may find rest for our souls, live in hope, die in peace, and be owned by thee at the last day as children and heirs of thy kingdom!

I. I am to show that Christ is precious. The apostle says, "elect and precious:" elect, as chosen and appointed of God for the office of our redemption-precious in the eyes of God, because he would undertake it — precious in himself, as the only begotten and eternal Son of God, equal in glory and majesty with the Father, and therefore every way qualified for the work he had to: do-precious to us, as the atonement for our sins the Lord our righteousness — the expounder of the law to us- the restorer of our natures to holiness' resurrection and life. our Mediator and Advocate with God.

Our

A short word upon each of these may be sufficient to give you a view of the preciousness of Christ in the glory of his person, in the riches of his love, and the exceeding great value of his blessings. I pray God you may attend to what is spoken, and accompany it with your own prayers for the sealing of it to your hearts.

The Lord Jesus Christ is precious in himself, and

considered in the glory of his Godhead as the Second Person in the blessed Trinity, the only begotten of the Father, and lying from all eternity in his bosom. And you see at once, in this point of knowledge and belief, how well he deserves the name of "chief corner-stone," to give strength and security to his spiritual house, and what a solid foundation we have in his nature of God, to rest our hopes upon. When the multitude of our sins rises up before the eye of conscience in soré conviction, and we are sinking under the burden of them, it is not a little matter that will support us. If we were to be told that a man like ourselves, or an angel of the highest order, had undertaken to reconcile us to God, our fears would still prevail, and we should have been ready to say, How can this be? How can any man make agreement to God for his brother? Or how could an angel, whose whole obedience in every point of his existence is due to God on his own account, obey for his fellow-creatures, and bear the weight of their sin?

But as he alone

When it was all laid upon Christ, in the day of God's fierce anger, it was a heavy load, dreadful indeed, almost insupportable to his spotless soul, and forced that astonishing cry from him-"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Matt. xxvii. 46. And if it was so severe a trial to him, how could any other in earth or heaven stand under the burden of it? could, so he alone could take away the guilt of it; and that because he was God as well as man. I say in this knowledge of Christ, as very God of very God, God in our nature, born into it that he might redeem it from the curse it was under, we have a precious antidote against all our fears. Every thing he did was both the purpose of God and the act of God, for us; and therefore, we may be sure, fully sufficient to answer the end for which it was done; to take away the sin of the world, yours and

mine, and to discharge us for ever from that debt. And to God the Father he was precious, because he would do it. For when he was baptized of John, and thereby entered solemnly upon his office, God declared his acceptance of him to it, and approbation of him for it, by "a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," Matt. iii. 17. And again it is said, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life;" as if he had not loved him till then, or upon that account more than ever. The words are a marvellous opening to us of the extreme danger of our condition in sin, of God's love in rescuing us from it, and of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in, carrying the Father's love and his own for perishing sinners into execution. Let it be a call to you to attend carefully to what follows; and as he is thus precious in himself, and in the eyes of God, chosen of God for the great work of our deliverance, willing to undertake it, and alone able to accomplish it, consider how precious he is and ought to be to us.

As the atonement for our sins, and the Lord our righteousness. He died, he lived, he obeyed, he suffered, for us; and when the soul is awakened to see its nakedness in sin, trembles for its guilt, and asks the question, "Wherewith shall I come before the most high God?" what hope can there be for such a sinner as I am? the answer of faith is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;" Acts, xvi. 31. Believe that he was appointed of God, and willingly offered himself to wash away thy sins in his blood; believe that he came into the world for this very purpose, that he might do the will of God, and fulfil all righteousness for thee,' for thy discharge from the condemnation of sin, and acceptance to his favour, for thy present comfort and eternal justification; and upon the warrant of all Scrip

ture thou mayest have the answer of a good conscience towards God, and speak peace to thy troubled thoughts. It is not in thy repentance, it is not in thy after obedience, or very best works; they cannot help thee to this answer, nor give ease to a mind labouring under the apprehensions of God's displeasure. Mark well what I say, and what foundation we must be upon for life. We must repent; but that is not our healing. We must do works meet for repentance; but that is not the ground of assurance. We are under a sentence of death by the sin of our first parents; who shall reverse it? We have pulled death upon our heads, every day and hour of our lives, by our own actual transgressions; what shall blot them out of God's book? His eternal truth demands our punishment, his almighty justice is armed against us; what shall stay his hand, or make him change his nature? If we were left to estimate the guilt of sin, and try it in our own balance, we should make a light matter of it, and be very favourable to ourselves. We should never: have thought what a desperate evil sin is, and what a curse cleaves to it, if the Scripture had not told us. We should never have known, that the just desert of every single sin is death, if we were not well assured that it was so punished in the person of the first offender, and has slain, and will slay all the countless millions which were in his loins. We should have supposed that nothing was more easy than to make our peace with God, in case of transgression, by a slight repentance, a lame obedience for the time to come, if Christ had not come down from! heaven to sustain the whole weight of divine vengeance against it upon the cross: Blessed be God, he did. "He who knew no sin was made sin for us," i. e. treated by God as having all the sin of the world in his own; person," that we might be made the righteousness of God in him;" 2 Cor. v. 21. Sin must have death, even

death eternal; and we were bound over to it by innumerable offences. God must have the righteousness of a full obedience from us, and our own imperfect works are not that righteousness, but infinitely short of it; and we must have suffered the dreadful effects of his justice for ever, if he himself had not contrived the means of our deliverance; Christ, and he only, as I am telling you. Not we ourselves, nothing that we have done, or can do, nothing of our own. We must let that alone for ever;" and if we were the greatest saints that ever lived, can have nothing but a false, deceitful peace, till we embrace the glad tidings of the Gospel, peace with God through Jesus Christ, and believe in him as the atone-" ment for our sins, and the Lord our righteousness. If there is any thing farther, proper to be observed upon this head, it is, that he offers himself in both these respects to be the Saviour of all, even the greatest of sinners; and would to God they would take notice of it for themselves. The best can be saved only by Christ;" and the worst may, if they come in upon his call, to receive the gift of forgiveness and righteousness at his hands. It is hard to say, whether we diminish the glory of Christ, and disparage his salvation more, by thinking that any can be saved without him, or that he cannot save all who come unto God by him.

Let us consider farther, that Christ is also precious

to us,

"as the expounder of the law of God." He has done it more especially for these two reasons, to show us first that all are transgressors of the law, when it is rightly understood; and then to bring all to him for deliverance from the penalty of it. He hath discovered to us, in the example of the Pharisees, who were not the least strict sort of men, Matt. v. what a poor thing it is in our eyes, and what sad work we make of it when left to ourselves. If we can but fashion our lives to some