upon it; enough to awaken our minds to hope and duty. In reviewing and improving the subject, let

me say,

1st. We should dwell in our thoughts often, and long, and with grateful wonder, on the "grace of God which bringeth salvation," and "hath shone forth unto all men." How willing, how desirous is he to reconcile sinners to himself "As I live," saith the Lord, "I desire not the death of the wicked, but that he return and live.". "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die," is his pathetic expostulation by the prophet. He observes by the prophet Jeremy to the Jews, and through them to all men, "I sent unto you all my servants, the prophets, rising early and sending them." And in the New Testament, behold him sending his only Son to seek and save the lost, and the train of the apostles and evangelists; all beseeching us to be reconciled to God. Let our hearts be melted by all this grace; let not one resist all this superabundant mercy. Indeed," how should 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."

There being such earnestness on the part of God for our salvation; and the Saviour having done and suffered so much for this great end, some seem easy and confident, that salvation for all men and all characters is made certain, without any active concurrence on their part. But be it remembered,

2d. That the very grace of God requires, in order to salvation, a renovation of heart, and purity of life. It teaches, that ungodliness must be denied, worldly lusts renounced and forsaken, that men must live in sobriety, righteousness, and godliness, and be redeem. ed from all iniquity, purified a peculiar people to Christ, zealous of good works. It is in vain, then, for any of us to take encouragement from the grace of God, great, wonderful as it is, except, at the same time, we yield ourselves to the condition, on which it brings salvation. We must be divorced from sin, or renounce the hope of salvation. In the gospel plan, and in the nature of things, sin and salvation cannot go together. Let us, then, abandon false hopes, and judge truly, that no step is taken toward salvation, any

fa

th

than it is taken in renouncing sin. Judge,

y dear hearers, judge of your hope and prospect of the great salvation, precisely according to the degree in which you die unto sin and live unto righteousness, are dead to the world, and alive unto God.

3d. Let us be drawn to the great work of renouncing all sin, by the most affecting fact, that Jesus "has given himself for us," that he might redeem, or deliver us from all iniquity, and purify us unto himself, a peculiar people. Shall the blessed Son of God do so much for this end, and we be contented to do nothing? Shall he leave glory, and live, and preach, and die, to deliver us from sin, and we refuse to give it up? Shall he, at the expense of blood, open to us

the gates of heaven, and we refuse to give up our lusts that we may enter in? God forbid. Let the love of Christ constrain us; let the affecting views we have taken of the grace of God, and the love of Christ, bow our souls to their most holy and blessed will. Let us desire nothing so much as deliverance from the power and pollution of sin; such deliverance on earth, is salvation begun, and is a comfortable foretaste and assurance of salvation, complete in glory.

SERMON II.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD WITHOUT OBSERVATION.

LUKE 17. xx, xxi.

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

The kingdom of God, and kingdom of Heaven, are terms which often occur in the New Testament; the ultimate and highest meaning of which is, that state of purity and glory, to which the righteous are to be received after death. But their most common and current meaning in the Evangelists is the visible state of the church under the gospel, which prepares for the kingdom of glory. Now the Pharisees, who demanded of Christ when the kingdom of God should come, entertained very gross views of its nature. They expected a Messiah clad in blood-stained armour, surrounded by invincible armies, rapidly extending hi conquests, till the Roman yoke should be broken fron

the Jewish neck, and till his empire, identified with that of the Jews, should be extended from "sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth." Such was the kingdom they were looking for, and from which they hoped to derive great wealth and honours. Our Lord's reply to them was concise and direct, adapted to confound the babel of their ambitious hopes, and to illustrate the spiritual nature of his kingdom. As the subject has respect to some of the essential features of christianity, and as really concerns us, as it did the Pharisees who propounded the question of our text, let us direct our serious and awakened attention to a series of observations, which may serve to unfold it. I remark

I. In its original introduction into the world, the kingdom of God, or gospel dispensation, was without those splendid ensigns which attract worldly attention.

It was a state of things we have seen, widely different from the corrupt hopes of the Jews; widely different from the circumstances which commence the erection of an earthly kingdom. Such a kingdom comes with observation, and men may say Lo here! or Lo there! And we have seen the dreadful tragedy acted over and over again in our own day. A kingdom like this the Jews expected, and the Pharisees desired; and their Messiah coming to them without these ensigns, "they saw no beauty in him that they should desire him."

Glance an eye over his earthly course, and you see litle to gratify, and much to offend a worldly ambition.