this is in fine harmony with the representation of him which we have just been noticing, as himself "the Life." There are expressions, too, in frequent use with the Apostle Paul, which convey the same idea. He speaks of "receiving Christ Jesus the Lord," for example, and of being "made partakers of Christ."— We thus receive Christ, and become partakers of him, when we believe the divine testimony concerning him. He then becomes ours, in the full virtue of his mediation. And it is with him, or in him, that we receive life. We cannot receive life but in receiving Christ. He is our life, because in receiving him we are delivered from condemnation, and "pass from death unto life" in the eye of law :-he is our life, because in receiving him we are regenerated, and the truth concerning him becomes the principle of the spiritual life in our souls:-and he is our life, because in receiving him, we obtain the divinely sanctioned hope of the life that is to come. When Christ is ours, life is ours. "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die :"*. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory:"+"I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I

live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me:"*" which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."+

But on this part of the subject I cannot enlarge, without anticipating what more properly belongs to our next proposition.-Before going forward to it, let me urge for a few moments, with all earnestness, on the attention of every reader, the incalculable value of the blessing in question-" ETERNAL LIFE!" I have called it a blessing:-but it is a vast assemblage of blessings. It includes in it "all spiritual blessings in heavenly places;"-grace here, and glory hereafter; "fulness of joy, and pleasures for evermore." Other things there are which are accessories to happiness ;— this is "the one thing needful." Other things perish in the using this, as its very designation imports, shall last as long as our being. O how worthless in the comparison will every thing pertaining to the present life be found and felt to be, when that most solemn of moments shall arrive, the moment that shall close time and open eternity! If then we have not a well-founded and satisfactory hope of eternal life, how deplorable will be our condition!-When one world must be left, and another entered,—and when the one we leave has been our portion, and no provision has been made for the other!-when

there is either no hope at all, or a hope that is selfflattering and delusive, founded in ignorance, in wilful and criminal ignorance, and only imbittering by disappointment the misery in which it terminates.There is but one alternative,-eternal life and eternal death. O think, my readers, of an alternative so solemn and so irreversible; and, ere it be for ever too late," while it is called to-day,"—while life and death are still set before you,-choose the life, that you may live. You are sinners. We are all sinners. This is the generic character of our race. The members of it may be practically sinners in an endless variety of degrees. But "all have sinned." Nor is the guilt of any individual, especially when regarded in its principle of ungodliness, of trivial amount.And surely, with respect to that first and most essential principle of the Gospel-that eternal life is a gift, the gift of free mercy to the undeserving,— I might put to you, in all its emphasis, the question of our Lord to the Jews on another subject-" Why, even of yourselves, judge ye not what is right ?” Must it not be so? Is not the congruity obvious between guilt and grace; and the incongruity not less so between sin and meritorious desert? Is it not right that the sinner should be humbled, and that the God whom he has offended should be glorified? How harmonious the divine statement-"The WAGES of sin is death; but the GIFT OF GOD is eternal life,

ever obtain, eternal life, There is but one way of

through Jesus Christ our Lord." And, whatever you may think of it, the declaration is plain and peremptory. If you are justified at all it must be “ freely, by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." If you now have, or if you it must be "IN HIS SON." it. Grace must reign. If you will not be debtors for it to grace, and to grace alone (for the very nature of grace forbids a compromise), yours it can never be. If you will not glorify God by accepting his free mercy, God must glorify himself by letting justice have its course. And then-who can intercede for you? who can save you? Do not, O do not, persist in rejecting the counsel of God against your own souls. Accept as a gift what you cannot, in the nature of things, without a dereliction on God's part of the principles of his moral government, ever obtain otherwise. Receive Christ; and in receiving Him, you receive eternal life. The spiritual principles of that life enter with him into the soul; the favour of God, with all its concomitant and promised blessings, becomes yours; and what is begun here shall be perfected hereafter. Hear, then, and obey the beseeching voice of Him who has said, and, while his word remains, continues to say-lifting up his hand to heaven, and, because he can swear by no greater, swearing by Himself" As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from

his way and live: Turn ye, turn ye-for why will ye

die !"

PROPOSITION III.

IT IS BY FAITH,-OR BY "BELIEVING ON THE NAME OF THE SON OF GOD,"-THAT ETERNAL LIFE IS OBTAINED.

SECTION I.

This part of my subject I feel solicitous to place in as simple and scriptural a light as possible. The statements of the word of God respecting it have nothing in them but simplicity; it is to be lamented that the same thing cannot by any means be affirmed of human systems.

I begin with an observation suggested by the particular terms of the text. There are some writers who conceive that such phrases as believing on" and "believing in" contain in them an evidence that saving faith is something more than simple belief. They have the idea of a difference between believing a person, and believing on or in a person; between believing a testimony, and believing on or in a testimony.Now it may at once be granted, that between the two former phrases there is a difference; a difference very obvious, but one which does not at all affect our present

B