becomes, he believes that it is the better; and clings most tenaciously to the hope of safety, when nearest irreparable perdition. In their benevolent attempt to conduct him by a short cut into christian peace and consolation, his spiritual guides land him in all the insensibility and obduracy of a reprobate mind; and confirm him in all his blindness and boldness, till peace and pardon are unattainable, and the horrors of unbroken darkness, and the distractions of everlasting despair, close around him.

Ah how dangerous, how ruinous, is it to heal the hurt of a wounded soul deceitfully! and how tremendous the responsibility of those, who, instead of the specific which the Scriptures prescribe for genuine peace and safety, substitute a narcotic which delivers up the patient to the death that never dies!

The good people, who told their wounded companions, that their cure did not depend upon their act of looking to the brazen serpent, but upon its power and efficacy; that their health and safety lay in it, and that no injury could befal them, if they would only believe that it had already made them perfectly whole; though they neither spoke all the truth, nor stated correctly the truth which they uttered, still they said much that was true.

And though there is much that is groundless, and much that is pernicious in the Berean hypoth

esis; still it is interwoven with some rich, precious, and invaluable truths.

Christ is the only Mediator betwixt God and man. He is the propitiation for sin. Neither is there salvation in any other.

The powers of language cannot express the importance of bringing directly before the mind of the awakened sinner, the person and work of Immanuel, the freeness of his love, the riches of his grace, the virtue of his death, and the allsufficiency of his righteousness. The first, genuine, and lasting comfort that can enter the mind of a sinner, who knows his need of salvation, must arise from a discovery of the perfection of his obedience, and the boundless value of his atonement. Under convictions of sin, many, if they have not been finally undone, have at least been long and needlessly detained in a state of distress and bondage, from their ignorance of the unsearchable grace, and superabundant merit of Jesus.

To those who are inquiring what they must do to be saved, the gospel is exactly and kindly adapted. It tells them that Christ is the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world: that he has come to seek and to save that which was lost: that we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. It is eighteen centuries since, on Calvary, he said, It is finished, bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. He then finished

ghost.

transgression, made an end of sin, brought in everlasting righteousness, and for ever perfected them that are sanctified. Years can neither diminish its worth, nor the united efforts of the whole creation, through an endless existence, add to its amount. It is six thousand years since the earth was launched from the hand of its Creator, and the sun planted in the open firmament of heaven. Age can neither augment the firmness, nor shake the stability of the globe. Centuries can neither heighten nor impair the beauty and brilliancy of the solar orb. All that we have to do to enjoy the benefit of these mighty productions of Omnipotence, is to walk abroad upon the surface of our planet, and give free admission to the heat and lustre of the sun. The righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ was complete on the day on which he died. It was able then to have sustained the weight of ten thousand thousand worlds; and to have secured behind its impenetrable protection a rebellious universe from the artillery of incensed justice. And when the hand of the Eternal shall ring out the last knell of time, it will retain all the value and virtue which it possessed when his soul left his bleeding body, and the first penitent took shelter beneath his wounded side. Time cannot wear its worth away; nor any efforts of ours add to the plenitude of its power and merit. Our only business is to take it for our own, and apply it to all the vast and invaluable purposes for which it was provided.

This never can be done too soon, nor by a process possessed of too much simplicity and facility. The shipwrecked passengers and crew can never too speedily gain a place of safety; nor a patient too quickly be delivered from the pain of broken bones, and restored to his usual ease and soundness. And when the heavens above us are covered with blackness, and hell from beneath is yawning to receive us; can we be too promptly placed on board the ark of mercy, where we shall ride in safety amidst the fury of the tempest, and set its utmost rage at defiance? When we lie bleeding with the dreadful gashes which sin has made, and roaring because of the bones which it has broken, can we ever be freed with too much ease and expedition from pain and misery, and restored to health and safety?

But though we never can arrive at spiritual peace and safety too soon nor too simply; it is of unspeakably greater importance to reach them at all. If that man must die, who, amidst the ravages of a mortal malady, is utterly insensible of its presence and power; that man is in equal jeopardy, who, though alarmed at his situation, and who though he calls the physician, instead of taking the specific, throws the antidote away, and seizes on the vehicle by which it was conveyed. That soul is clearly in a state of perdition, which gives itself no concern about the way of peace and salvation but is that soul any nearer the gates of heaven, which after hearing indistinctly of the

gospel method of salvation, instead of taking refuge there, sits down in some notion or scheme of its own? Though Jesus is rich in grace, and the blessings of redeeming mercy are innumerable and immense, within the whole great family of man, there is not one who will seriously lay these subjects to heart, till he is sensible of his guilt and depravity, and of his total inability to contribute to his own salvation. Men, in such a situation, will gladly welcome the gospel message: but all others will despise and reject it. The whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Now, in the face of these facts, is it either innocent or safe to travel over the world preaching to every human creature, that Christ has redeemed him; that God, for Christ's sake, loves him, and has forgiven all his iniquities? Is it warrantable or kind to tell every sinner that, if he will only believe these things, all the blessings of the gospel are his own? Is there either truth or safety in such a representation?

Strangers to the system may be sceptical about the existence of such a representation. They may suppose that such language is merely the effect of ignorance, or an affected paradoxical use of words; and that all that is meant, by every man being redeemed, pardoned, and interested in Christ, is only that the righteousness of Christ is of infinite value; so that while the invitations of the gospel