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a name to live while you are dead, you are warned to stop. Let the fatal example of the foolish virgins serve as a warning to you, now to begin with your hearts. Suppose the search should be made throughout this congregation-that every heart should now be laid open-and that five out of every ten should be found who have no love to God-no light in them. Awful disclosure! What shall be done? All are traveling on together, and soon will their journey close. Shall they hold on, and hold out to the end? But some have no oil in their vessels.

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Brethren, are your hearts right with God? Are they replenished with all the christian graces? And do they burn with love to Christ, as you talk together by the way? Have old things passed away, and all things become new? If so, then go on-endure to the end, and you shall be saved.

But if your hearts are not thus prepared-stop where you are. Go no farther. "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die ?" Go back-for you are on the road to death. Go back, I entreat you, and enter the strait gate and the narrow way. Persevere a little longertake a few more steps in your present course, and you will be forever too late. Make haste, for the time is far spent, and Christ is at hand. "The coming of the Lord draweth nigh." Haste thee, for the messenger of death is near; and "behold, the bridegroom cometh." Then they that are ready will enter heaven; and the door will be forever shut."

13*

SERMON XI.

The Great Salvation.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?-HEBREWS ii: 3.

THE apostle had just been speaking of the glorious author of this salvation. He calls him "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person." In view of his exalted character, and of what he had done and suffered for the salvation of sinners, the apostle warns us to take heed; "For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received the just recompense of reward; how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Which at the first, began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him."

In discoursing from the text I propose to consider I. In what the greatness of this salvation consists. II. Who are guilty of neglecting it?

III. The import of the language, "how shall we escape."

I. In what the greatness of this salvation consists. It is a great salvation.

1. Because it delivers from great and awful punishment. The punishment denounced against the wicked is dreadful in its nature. "They shall have their part

in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." This punishment will be inflicted by God himself. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." When God arises to take vengeance, it will be inconceivably dreadful. "On the wicked God shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup."

This punishment will be dreadful in its duration. The eternal happiness of the righteous, is no more clearly revealed, than the eternal punishment of the wicked. Those who shall be cast into the prison of hell, will have nothing with which to discharge their immense debt to the justice of God; and yet our Saviour has declared, "Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite." The duration of this punishment, is set forth in such language as the following-"They shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt""To whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever""To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever"—"Punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power"-"The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever." But what decides the point, are these despairing expressions-" Cast into fire that shall never be quenched"-"Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched"—"Nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned"-"Whose end is destruction." If there should ever be a period in eternity when the wicked will be delivered from hell, this language would not be true. It could not be said, "their

end is destruction." However long they might suffer in hell, their beginning would be destruction, and their end salvation. Abraham said to the rich man, "between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." And is not this a great and awful punishment? And is not deliverance from such a punishment, a great salvation?

2. It is a great salvation because it could be effected by nothing short of the death of the Son of God. "Redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver and gold; but with the precious blood of Christ." "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission"-no not of a single sin-not the blood of a sinner-not the blood of an angel. The mystery runs back to the triune God. Nothing but the precious blood of the Son of God, can atone for sin. Here justice and mercy are gloriously displayed. For when Christ stood in the place of sinners, God did not in the least, suffer his wrath to cool. He said, "Awake O sword against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow." Surely a salvation, purchased at so dear a rate, is a great salvation.

3. It is a great salvation, because it delivers from the reigning power and dominion of sin. It is not merely a deliverance from punishment, the effect of sin; but a deliverance from sin itself. "The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest; whose waters cast up mire and dirt." With their present disposition, they would be forever hateful and hating one another-tormented, and tormenting one another, by the rage and fury of their passions. Now it is the

glory of this salvation, that it delivers from the dominion of sin, and sets the prisoner free from all these dreadful evils.

The Christian who now exclaims, " O wretched man that I am," can add, "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." The author of this salvation, was "called Jesus, because he should save his people from their sins." This salvation is every way suited to those who hate sin, and who desire to be delivered from it as the worst of evils.

4. It is a great salvation, because it introduces those who accept it, into a state of complete holiness and eternal happiness, in the full enjoyment of God, and the society of all holy beings. There they will be adorned with every grace, which can render them happy in themselves, and lovely in the sight of God. "He will beautify the meek with salvation." They will be "accounted worthy to obtain that world." "Neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels." "Then shall the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of their father." And they shall sing "Salvation to our God, who sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever."

This, my hearers, is the salvation offered in the gospel. With a sense of the vast importance of the subject, let us inquire

II. Who are guilty of neglecting this salvation?

Need I mention the openly immoral? The covetous, drunkards, swearers, railers, thieves, and all liars, we are assured shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. All who live in open wickedness-all who speak lightly of religion and its professors, are convin

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