white in the blood of the Lamb; and mysterious as this wisdom is to the princes of this world, it is wisdom ordained before the world to our glory.

These three views display the wisdom of the gospel as an expedient for man's salvation; in the difficulty which it meets, in the glory which it brings to God, and in its adaptation to produce the end which it designs; "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world to our glory."

IV. How vain are the objections which men make to this system of grace and salvation! This is God's plan. It is marked with the wisdom of his character. It has glorified him, in an amazing degree, in the effect which it has produced throughout the world. Though many of you may see no reason in this system, and may persuade yourselves to believe that there is something in it which is contrary to your reason, rest assured, if you will throw yourselves with faith upon it, you will find it to be the power of God unto salvation to your souls. You have not a want which it will not supply. It will meet your whole necessities. It will abundantly answer your prayers.

This is the true and proper test of the fitness and wisdom of the gospel; the test of experience. Try this system. Taste and see that the Lord is gracious. To this point

would I lead your affections and plans. I cannot stop to argue about the externals of this plan before the tribunal of man's wisdom. You may be speculatively believers, while you are practically unbelievers. You can know nothing of the wisdom or the fitness of the gospel, unless you are willing to receive it and try it under the shape in which it comes to you, as a remedy for your diseased and ruined souls. If you are willing to be convinced of your necessities; if you are ready to acknowledge that you have deep and fatal spiritual wants, and are willing to lay yourselves down as a free

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offering before the feet of a crucified Saviour, this gospel will tell you all you can desire to know, and give you all you can need to possess.

Your blinded reasons may urge a thousand questions which God has not answered, and which man cannot answer, about this heavenly system; and you may be persuaded to say, I can. not accept it because I cannot understand it. This is no fair or accurate test of any remedy for evil. Go with a deep conviction that you are guilty, and deserve condemnation; that you are ruined, and have no help. Go with a penitent and sorrowful spirit, in remembrance of your sin, looking upon the load you have heaped upon a dying friend. Go with the language of unfeigned humiliation, with a sincere desire to obtain pardon and peace in the relation between your soul and God. Go thus to the feet of Jesus, and ask for the remedy which he bestows. If, then, you are sent back empty, if you find that the gospel can do nothing for you, that your load of guilt is unremoved, and your souls have no peace with God, then may you, with much greater show of reason, pronounce upon the unfitness of the gospel to answer your necessity. But until you have tried and found the trial vain, you cannot with the least propriety, urge a single objection to the terms and operation of the gospel.

Are you willing to make this trial? Are you ready to test, by experience, the sufficiency of Christ? He invites you; he advises you; he warns you; he encourages you; he intreats you all, to submit your wills, your desires, your characters, to him; and by his Spirit he will enable you to know and understand the things which are freely given you of God; and this acceptance of the gospel shall furnish you a salvation that can be obtained by no other instrument or method.

LECTURE V.

THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL TO SAVE.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth.-ROMANS, I. 16.

ATTEMPTS to discredit and oppose the preaching and influence of the gospel of Christ have attended its progress in every age. When inspired apostles proclaimed its saving truths, they were in no degree more acceptable to sinful men than they are now. To the self-righteous Jews, the gospel was a stumbling block, because it conceded nothing to the merit of human works. By the conceited Greek it was accounted foolishness, because it paid no deference to the arrogant claims of human reason. It was inconceivable to those who confided entirely in their own wisdom and strength to do good, that the change of the whole character, and the salvation of the soul of man, should be effected by means apparently so unsuited to the end. Accordingly they opposed and derided the preaching of the gospel, as the tale of babblers, and the fancy of an uneducated sect.

But what then? Because wicked men deride, shall apostles shrink and be silent? St. Paul avows a purpose far from this. In the face of all opposition and of all reproach, he declares himself not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it would prove to be, as it was designed to be, the appointed and successful instrument of the power of God, for the salvation of mankind. Infidelity might scorn its influence. But faith would reap the glorious benefits which it conferred.

"The gospel of Christ" is the intelligence of what God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, has done for the salvation of man. It is the history of the advent, incarnation and death of God's dear Son as a Saviour for sinners, and the offer to them of all the blessed results of his work of merit and grace. It announces God as reconciled to man in the death of his Son,-and by the influence of this intelligence, it persuades men by the power of the Spirit, to be reconciled to God. This is God's appointed instrument, and the power of God, for the salvation of those who believe.

This is the subject to which I would call your attention in this discourse; the gospel of Christ the manifestation of divine power in the salvation of mankind. It is a subject so glorious, that we may well unite with the apostle as we consider it, in the assertion, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." We may regard this manifestation of divine power, under the two aspects, of the work which God has accomplished for us, by the meritorious obedience and death of the Lord Jesus Christ,--and the work which he accomplishes in us by the renewing operations of the Holy Spirit.

I. The Gospel manifests the power of God, in the revelation which it makes of what God has done for us by the obedience and death of his dear Son.

As transgressors against God, the law held us in bondage, kept us under condemnation, and bound us over to endure the wages of sin in everlasting death. We were wholly without hope, because we were without power to satisfy the law, and break the bondage wherein we were held. But this bondage, God has broken by the gift of his own Son. He has been set forth in the suffering nature of man, as the propitiation for our sins. He has thus released us from condemnation, and provided a sacrifice and offering which meets every penalty of the law, and gives a new and glorious hope, to all who are ready to come unto God through him. In the obe

dience which the Lord Jesus has thus rendered to the law, and the satisfaction, which he has made to its demands, he has silenced all its denunciations, and opened a new and certain way of life to the guilty; and the gospel, in proclaiming this wonderful provision of divine mercy, becomes the power of God unto salvation to those who believe. But release from condemnation is not all we need. We must have also a title to glory, a right to enter into the kingdom of God. And this can only be the result of a perfect and unspotted obedience of divine commands. Here also, the power of God interposes, and the gospel proclaims the work. In the obedience which the Saviour has rendered to those commands which are holy, just, and good, and which cannot be annulled, He has brought in an everlasting righteousness for all who believe in him. By his obedience, the law is magnified, and many whom it condemned, are made righteous. In this perfect offering of obedience God displays his power to save. He can justly exercise loving kindness to those who were condemned to death, and can raise the prisoner from the dungeon to set him upon the throne; and in the very act of his release can honour the law which held him in condemnation.

Again, as fallen beings, Satan held us in captivity--we were under the power of the god of this world, and he exercised over the hearts and habits of all, a ruinous dominion. But from this power the Lord Jesus Christ has rescued us. He has overcome him that had the power of death. When he hung bleeding upon the cross, and was, to the view of the ignorant, himself subdued and destroyed, he triumphed over Satan, spoiled principalities and powers of darkness, and made a show of his conquest openly. And by the proclamation of this one great fact, that Christ Jesus died upon the cross for sinners, the gospel has been the instrument of overthrowing the kingdom of Satan in every age, and setting up the empire of the Son of God upon the earth.

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