man has an Isaac in his own heart,-in his love of the world, or covetousness, or pride, or selfdependence, or some sin or other of our fallen nature, let him so come to the mercy-seat, and he shall assuredly meet there a welcoming and a loving Saviour. And let no believer who hath "tasted of the good word of life," and found it more than fulfilling all its promises of peace and joy in God, fail to remember the patience, meekness, self-denial and forgiveness of our very foes, so beautifully set forth for our example and imitation in this day's memorable history; rather let him pray, that with a holier fidelity and a purer fervour, he may henceforth be enabled daily to put up his offerings of praise for what the Lord hath done for each saved and pardoned soul. In the words of the excellent homily of our own church for the occasion: "let us with all reverence glorify his name, let us magnify and praise him for ever; for he hath dealt with us according to his great mercy; by himself hath he purchased our redemption. He thought it not enough to spare himself and to send his angel to do this deed, but he would do it himself, that he might do it the better, and make it the more perfect redemption. He was nothing moved with the intolerable pains that he suffered in the whole course of his long passion, to repent him thus to do good to his enemies; but he opened his heart for us, and bestowed himself wholly

Let us, therefore, now him and study in our

for the ransoming of us. open our hearts again to lives to be thankful to such a Lord, and evermore to be mindful of so great a benefit; yea, let us take up our cross with Christ, and follow him."

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SERMON XXI.

THE RESURRECTION.

1 COR. XV. 20-22.

Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Or all the different views in which the devout mind can contemplate our holy faith, no one gives more comfort than that arising out of the truth of our Lord's resurrection from the dead. For while such a mind not only sees in death many circumstances really awful to the heart without Christ, and mourns over the cause which "brought death into the world, and all our woe," it is raised above every depressing consideration by the sure and cheering prospect of a life beyond the grave, which can never end nor become

weary. To the man, however, who has no bright hope that he shall first sweetly sleep in Jesus, and afterwards be awakened from that sleep to enter on the eternal joy laid up for his people, death cannot but appear robed in terror and alarm. A fictitious bravery may indeed be assumed in the dying hour, but a heart without hope must be a heart without peace, and a heart without peace never yet found any relief from the vaunts of a false philosophy, or any refuge in the doubts of a gloomy scepticism. It had been better if Christians themselves had taken their common language on this subject, not from the phrase of an unholy world, but from the only record of all truth, the saving word of God. Having through grace been led to adopt the pure code and doctrines of redeeming love, believers speak the language of error, and do dishonour to their common Master, when they call death a debt of nature. It may be objected, perhaps, that it is not the province of a minister to quarrel with the terms of expression which the profane and unthinking prefer, yet, assuredly it is his duty to call on the followers of a risen Saviour to beware how, in the slightest degree, they confuse the principles of their wellgrounded trust, by losing sight of the only cause of the introduction of death into the world. On this point the Scriptures leave us no room for hesitation, and it is the part of one unfaithful

to the light imparted by those Scriptures, to adopt any tone, however customary, which puts their clear language out of the way, and in its place substitutes a language of an obviously exceptionable import. God's word proves, not that death is the debt of nature, but the debt of sin, and how then can a single-minded believer venture, without great and manifest impropriety, to give up this essential distinction, and to use the perverse language of the world, which here, as on unnumbered occasions, forms a conclusion at entire variance with the oracles of God? God proposed to man in Eden, a course of obedience, which, followed, would keep him in innocence and life, and which, broken, would involve iniquity and death. "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," was the mandate given; the mandate was not submitted to, and the penalty was incurred; man sinned against his Maker, and was consequently visited with the threatened punishment; disobedience brought death upon himself, and entailed it on all his posterity, as the debt before ordained to be paid for the infringement of the divine law. In that infringement did the first sin consist, and therefore death, its pre-appointed penalty, is the original debt of sin.

Besides, (to extend the observation for a moment farther,) man having been naturally framed after the similitude of God,-"let us make man