into captivity to the law of sin, which is in your members." (ROM., c. vii. v. 23.) For, alas! my friends, so portentous a revolution did the original guilt of our first parent produce in the human constitution, that the natural powers of man were no longer competent to prevent him from being subjected to sin's ignominious yoke. Ignorance and concupiscence, those melancholy consequences of the corrupt bias which it gave to his inclinations, by clouding his understanding, and prompting him to the gratification of his sensual appetites, rendered him the dupe of the most deplorable delusions, and hurried him on to the grossest excesses. These lamentable effects of the transgression of our first parent were strikingly conspicuous in the inhabitants of the Heathen world, whose idolatrous superstitions and unbridled licentiousness are described by St. Paul, in such hideous colours, in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans; "and they changed," says the Apostle, "the glory of the incorruptible God, into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever, amen.” (Roм., c. i. v. 23, 24, 25.) And if the same darkness of the understanding and depravity of heart, which disfigured our Pagan ancestors, no longer prevail amongst us to the same

extent, it is to the light of the Gospel, and to the influence of God's Holy Spirit, imparted to us through the blessed Jesus, that we are indebted for the advantages which we possess over them in these respects. Such then, my friends, was the disastrous state to which man was reduced by the guilt and consequences of sin. Such the condition from which "God, who was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," hath graciously delivered us. For "when you were dead in your sins he hath quickened you together with him, forgiving you all offences, blotting out the hand-writing that was against us, fastening it to the cross." (COLOSS., c. ii. v. 13, 14.) And "the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath freed us from the law of sin and of death." (ROM., c. viii. v. 2.) The immensity of the goodness of the Saviour of mankind, which has been thus displayed by him in the work of man's redemption, is enhanced in our estimation, by the consideration of the personal indignities and sufferings to which he condescended to submit, in order to accomplish it; for "being in the form of God, he debased himself," says St. Paul, "taking the form of a servant." (PHILIPP., c. ï. v. 6, 7.) And« "having joy set before him," as the same Apostle observes, "he endured the cross, despising the shame." (HEB., c. xii. v. 2.)

Is it possible, now, my friends, I confidently ask, is it possible for any one to be feelingly convinced of these important and interesting truths, without being deeply affected by them? Is it possible that he

should believe in his heart that his condition was that of a disgusting leper, a criminal condemned to everlasting torments, a wretched and degraded slave; and that to rescue him from that condition, the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father, infinitely happy and infinitely glorious, had actually subjected himself to the most outrageous insults, and suffered a cruel and ignominious death; is it possible, I say, that in his heart he should believe all this, without entertaining towards so merciful a deliverer the most lively sentiments of gratitude and affection? Is it possible moreover that he should entertain such sentiments without manifesting them externally by a corresponding tenor of conduct? If, like the poor wounded traveller, mentioned in the Gospel according to St. Luke, (LUKE, c. x.) who fell among robbers, you had been assailed by some powerful and ruthless tyrant, (who may be compared with the strong man in the subsequent chapter of the same Gospel,) who "having stripped you, had left you half dead," if in that state he had committed you to a darksome dungeon, with no other prospect than that of being dragged from it to the place of execution; and if, under these circumstances, a benevolent individual had contrived to have access to you, and like the good Samaritan, in the parable, above alluded to, had caused you to be restored to health; if having clothed moreover your naked limbs, he had by his superior strength, overpowered the strong man who detained you in captivity, rescued you from his grasp, and thus preserved you from

impending destruction, though he had purchased with his blood the dear-bought victory which he had gained over your oppressor, would you not hold his memory in the highest veneration, and would not the warmest feelings of gratitude towards so kind, so magnanimous, so disinterested a benefactor, animate perpetually your breasts? My friends, the case which I have been proposing to you as a picture only of the imagination, has been actually realized, but upon an incomparably more extensive scale, by your blessed Saviour, in your regard. A tyrant, more formidable than the strongest of earthly potentates, had inflicted upon you a deadly wound, terminating in a loathsome and incurable leprosy. The tyrant to whom I allude is the prince of darkness, who has been pronounced by Christ " murderer from the beginning." (JOHN, c. viii. v. 44.) The deadly wound which he had inflicted upon your souls, was the guilt of sin, to the cure of which all the united powers of created beings were wholly inadequate. And having stripped them of their robe of righteousness, he had laid them bare in all the naked foulness of their intrinsic turpitude. In this state, having converted their earthly tabernacles into dreary prisons, without a single ray of hope to comfort them in their confinement, he had reserved them, (to use the language of St. Jude) like the Angels who kept not their principality, under everlasting chains, (for such the bonds of "the law of sin which is in the members," may be justly considered,) unto the judgment of the great day.

(JUDE, v. 6.) This, my friends, was our miserable condition, when the only begotton son of God with infinite condescension and goodness, came forward in our behalf, and, by his merciful interposition, restored us to health, to liberty and immortality.

And yet, with what coldness and insensibility do not the generality of Christians appear to listen to the representations so frequently made to them of this infinite condescension and goodness of their blessed Saviour in the work of their redemption! And how little do they seem disposed to co-operate with him in the promotion of the grand object for which he undertook it, the eternal salvation of their immortal souls! What can be the reason of this? To what are we to attribute this apparent indifference and apathy, opposed at once to the best feelings of their nature, and the highest interests of their being? It surely cannot be that they are not convinced of the truth of that fundamental article of the Christian religion, "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood," (ROм., c. iii. v. 24, 25.) without which Christianity would be a baseless fabric. No; it is to be accounted for from a want of that due consideration of the important subject which is necessary to bring it home to their bosoms. It is because they are apt to view it rather as a mysterious tenet of speculative belief, than as an inscrutable indeed, yet practical transaction, in which individually they are deeply interested. It is because they are not sensible of the immense improvement which