our lives; can we justify ourselves to God, and challenge heaven in our own right? Never call yourselves believers in Christ, till you know better what he has done for you, and how much it cost to redeem your souls. Never talk of your own doings, your own power or holiness, when sin is to be atoned, when the law is to have its due of a perfect obedience from you, when justice is to be made your friend, when Satan is to give up his right in you, when the grave is to be opened, when every dust of your bodies is to be brought together again and kindled into life, and soul and body to be presented holy to God, and fit to enter into heaven. Never think that all or any part of this is to be done by man, for we could as soon make a world. Neither deceive yourselves with fancying, as too many do, that what Christ has chiefly done for us, was to make salvation-work more easy than it was before, and that therefore the performance of it will be looked for at our hands. I beseech you understand; He has made salvation both possible and easy to sinners, by doing and suffering in our stead what we could not; and our salvation now depends on the condition of believing that we could not do it, and that he did. You must not stand before God in a lie, you must not pretend that you are clean from all spot of sin in yourselves, you must not entertain a thought of being your own saviours; but if you would have peace with God, if you would be comforted, if you would be in a way of doing what is required of you, turn to a better hope, and say with an humble, steadfast faith, and great rejoicing in the conscience, "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Consider the chapter of which these words are the conclusion, and see on what ground the belief of a resurrection to eternal life is established, and by whose victory it is that we attain to this hope.

So early as the apostles' days some called in question the resurrection of the dead. But St. Paul says, in answer to this, "If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen," ver. 13. How is that? Why could not he have risen, whether any others do or not? And how does it follow that because he rose again, there must necessarily be a resurrection of the dead? Why, because he did not rise for himself, but for believers ; their resurrection being included in his; and that they, as parts or members of his body, might be partakers of his victory over death, be "quickened together with him, raised together, and with him sit together in heavenly places," as the Scripture expressly assures us they do, Eph. ii. 5, 6. So that his resurrection was the resurrection of all who belong to him; and as sure as they died in Adam, so surely in Christ, their second Father, shall they all be made alive; his rising as the first-fruits being a certain proof and pledge of a general harvest to follow in its time and order.

Now, can it be made a question whether this great salvation is of grace or of debt, of Christ or of man? Whether it was the work and contrivance of the blessed Trinity in mercy to lost mankind, or possible to be effected by any power, will, or righteousness of our own? "Who is this," saith the prophet, "that cometh travelling in the greatness of his strength?" Isaiah, lxiii. 1. Will you answer and say, It is I, I myself, "mighty to save?" Oh! lie down in the dust. Know your guilt; confess your desert; abhor yourselves. Let Him who can, let grace save you. Understand what it is that distinguisheth the religion of the Gospel from all others, and is the chief ground of our rejoicing before God. It is the Lord Jesus Christ," our hope," 1 Tim. i. 1," who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption," 1 Cor. i. 30. It is not that

thereby we attain to such a righteousness of our own as will satisfy the law, and take out the sting of death; but because we have heard Christ himself saying, "This is the work of God," what he requires at our hands, and without which nothing that we do will be accepted," that ye believe in him whom he hath sent;" John, vi. 29; sent from the bowels of his mercy to do what no other could, to redeem us from the curse of the law, to ransom us from the grave, to exalt us to a place at God's right hand, by bearing our sins in his own body on the cross, offering up a spotless righteousness to God on our behalf, and communicating the merit of all he did and suffered to those who, with an humble faith and a deep sense of their unworthiness, lay their sins on his head, and fly to him as their only refuge from condemnation. Look for comfort and sure footing where you will, you will never find it but in this great article of our religion, that Christ is given to us of God to save us from the curse and ruin of our sin, and be our Father for life, as Adam was for death. Whatever we do is so defective, that we can place no confidence in it; and we shall always be in a state of the most distressing uncertainty, till we can say boldly, in the faith of the great salvation which has been wrought for us," Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ:" "blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you;" 1 Pet. i. 3, 4. I say, let us stand fast upon this ground, and receive mercy as mercy.

If God has manifested the riches of his nature in behalf of a lost world, and will be known of us as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, receiving us to

a covenant of life and peace in him, let us not entertain a doubt of his gracious intention, so fully declared, so strongly recommended to our belief, so strangely confirmed and sealed to us, not only by his word, but oath, and the blood of his Son. Let us never forget it, let us not fly to other expedients, nor build our hopes of acceptance to the reward of eternal life on any other foundation than that of his grace and purpose in Christ Jesus, when it is so exactly suited to our case, and the very thing we want. Let us not defeat it, nor lose our interest in it, by robbing him of his glory, as we do by a proud conceit of ourselves. If there is any thing more astonishing than the goodness of God in the redemption of sinners, it is the presumption of man in taking any share of it to himself.

What farther remains to be said, and must of all necessity be pressed upon you, and brought home to your consciences, is the use and improvement we are to make of Christ's victory, by taking him for our Lord the King to reign over us, unfeigned submission to his teaching, and living up to our faith.

Suppose now a person awakened to a sense of his condition, and convinced of the exceeding sinfulness, great danger, and plague of sin; that he sees nothing but ruin and misery before him, and that if the wages of sin at all times is death, he must perish for ever, without help or hope in himself; that in this extremity he hears Christ preached as sent of God to work his deliverance, to make full satisfaction to justice, to bear the punishment of his sin, to fulfil the law in his stead, to die for him, to rise from the dead for him, to ascend into heaven, and take possession of it for him; and that whenever he turns to God in repentance, and with an humble faith accepts the Lord Jesus Christ for his Saviour, he shall be entitled to all the benefits of his victory over sin, death,

and hell: I say, suppose a person so awakened, so convinced, so believing, seeing such a curse in sin, such a glory in Christ, such riches of grace in God; and what, do you think, would be the ruling desire, and settled temper of his heart? Would it be to slight and run the hazard of losing, or to keep the mercy he has gotten? Would it be to continue in rebellion against God, or study to make him some suitable returns of gratitude? Would it be to turn back to his former state, at the same time that he sees the guilt, the danger, the damnation of it, and is rejoicing in the mercy of deliverance from it? Behold here, therefore, the natural effect and proper working of faith in the pardoning love of God through Christ Jesus, its happy influence on practice, what advantage it gives us for the reformation of our lives, and how sweetly it engages the believing soul to obedience, from a gracious principle of love!

It was a moving word which God spake concerning Israel, “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee up, Israel? My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy; for I am God, and not man ;" Hos. xi. 8, 9. This, I say, was a loud call to a hardened people to repent, and intended, as every display of the divine compassion is, to melt down their stubborn natures. But how much more gloriously was the love of God manifested, in giving his Son to die for a sinful, rebellious world! And what can kindle our love, and bind us in a sacred bond of grateful, willing subjection to him, if this does not? What can convince us more effectually of the heinous, accursed nature of sin, of God's vengeance against it, and will to punish it, what can give us a greater abhorrence of it, than the very method of our deliverance from it, by the death and sacrifice of Christ? If we