of one that has been relieved by him from the horrors of a guilty conscience, and the dreadful displeasure of God. Joy is in itself a pleasing passion, and we delight to indulge it and to a heart that has just felt the mercy of deliverance from everlasting destruction, thanksgiving is a most grateful and pleasing employ: and, in this, much of the happiness of heaven consists.

From this view of the duty intended by looking to Jesus, take occasion, my brethren, to examine, whether ever you have complied with it; for it is a matter of infinite importance, as your eternal state depends upon it. He that hath the Son, hath life, and he that hath not the Son, hath not life, 1 John v. 12.

SERMON XLII.

ARGUMENTS TO ENFORCE OUR LOOKING TO CHRIST.

ISAIAH XlV. 22.-Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.

THE duty of looking to Christ being explained, I shall, II. Urge you to look to him by several weighty considerations.

This is the great duty of saints and sinners, and consequently of every one in all ages and places, even to the ends of the earth. It is the duty of sinners to turn away their eyes from beholding vanity, and fix them upon this attractive, but, alas! neglected Savior; to turn their attention from the trifles of time to the great Antitype of the brazen serpent, who is lifted up that a dying world may open their eyes, just closing in death, and look and live. And saints, whose eyes have been turned to this glorious object, ought to fix them more intensely upon him, to take larger surveys of his glory, and to renew their affectionate trust in him.

I would premise, that when I exhort sinners to look to Jesus, I would not intimate, that they are able to do this of themselves. No; I am very sensible, that all the ex

hortations, persuasions, invitations, and expostulations that a feeble mortal, or even the most powerful angel in heaven can use with them will have no effect, but vanish into air, without the efficacious operation of almighty grace. And yet such exhortations are neither useless, improper, or unscriptural: they tend to convince sinners of their inability to believe, which is necessary to their believing aright; and it is while such arguments are addressed to their understandings, that the holy Spirit is wont to work upon their hearts. Hence they are so often commanded in scripture to repent, to believe in Christ, to look to him to make them a new heart, &c. I would add, that when I express the duty enjoined under the metaphor of looking, I hope it will not lead any of you into gross corporeal ideas, since the import of it has been so fully shown.

The arguments to enforce this important evangelica! duty can never be exhausted; and therefore I must confine myself to those which this copious text furnishes us with, which, when resolved into particulars, will stand thus:

It is salvation we are called upon to pursue--It may be obtained upon the easiest terms, without any personal merit, viz. by a look-It is Immanuel, the incarnate God, that commands and invites us to look-and he is the glorious and affecting object to which we are to lookand our looking shall not be in vain, for he is God, who engages to save those that look to him ;-and it is in vain to look elsewhere for salvation, and needless to fear his grace should be controlled by another; for as he is God, so there is none else and we in particular are invited, being especially meant by the ends of the earth.

1. It is salvation that is here offered. Look and be saved. Salvation! O most propitious, transporting sound! Amazing! that ever it should be heard by our guilty ears! Sin, my brethren, has exposed us to the curse of the divine law, to the loss of heaven, and all its joys, yea, and of earth too, and all its entertainments; for death, the consequence of sin, will rend us from them. We have no title to any good to satisfy our eager pantings; and must languish and pine through an endless duration without a drop of bliss, if punished according to our demerit. We are also subject to the

torturing agonies of a remorseful conscience, to be cut off from the earth by the sword of justice, and swept away by the besom of destruction into the regions of horror and despair, there to consume away a long, long eternity in inextinguishable flames, in remediless, intolerable torments, in the horrid society of devils and damned ghosts, who shall mutually promote and join in the general roar of torture and desperation. This, Sirs, is our just, our unavoidable doom, unless we obtain an interest in the salvation of the Lord. But salvation brings us a complete remedy, equal to our misery. It contains a title to the divine favor, and consequently to all the joys of heaven; it contains a perfect deliverance from all the torments of hell and shall we not then regard and obey the voice that cries, Look unto me, and be ye saved! Is it not fit those should perish without remedy, who hear the offer of such a salvation with indifference? How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? Were we now under a sentence of condemnation to death by an earthly court, and were going out one after another to the place of execution, and should some welcome messenger, with a general pardon in his hand, come with joyful speed into this assembly, and proclaim salvation! salvation! to all that would accept it on the easiest terms, what a shout of general joy would burst from this assembly! What changed faces, what tears of general joy, would appear among us! In this agreeable character, my brethren, I have the honor and the happiness of appearing among you this day. I proclaim salvation from the Lord to dying men; salvation to all that will look to him for it. And I would not make the offer to the air, or to the walls of this house, but to rational creatures, capable of consenting and refusing. I therefore request you to look upon it as a proposal made to you; to you men, to you women, to you youth and children, to you negroes, demanding a speedy answer. Will you look to Jesus? or will you hide your faces from him? Will you not think him and his salvation worth a look? Which leads me to observe,

2. This salvation may be obtained upon low terms. It may be obtained by a look. Look and be saved; and this metaphor implies that no merit is required in us to procure this salvation. It is as cheap a cure as that

which the Israelites obtained by looking to a brazen serpent. The salvation is wrought already; Christ would not separate his soul and body, and put an end to his pains, till he could say, it is finished, and all required of us is a cheerful acceptance: and what terms can be easier? It is true we are required to abstain from sin, and be holy, in order to enjoy this salvation; but can this be looked upon as a hard term? It is impossible in the nature of things you should be saved in a course of sin; for one great part of the salvation consists in deliverance from sin. This is the deadly disease which must be healed, in order to your happiness. And how then can you expect to be saved while you indulge in it? Would you not think your physician made easy prescriptions to you, if he assured you of recovery, when you were sick, upon condition that you would abstain from poison, and confine yourselves to a wholesome diet? Holiness is as necessary to happiness as temperance to health; and though sinners, like drunkards, think this a hard imposition, yet it cannot be altered, without a change in the immutable Deity. Therefore submit to the terms of salvation; they are as low, as easy as the nature of things will permit. They are not the rigid arbitrary impositions of an austere being, but the mild, unavoidable requisitions of an indulgent and wise God, acting according to the reason of things. If salvation was offered to you, upon condition of your making an infinite satisfaction for sin, you might start off from the proposal; for even almighty grace could not enable you to do this: for this you could not do without being advanced above the rank of creatures, and endowed with infinity, which you are physically incapable of. But grace can dispose you to consent to the terms of the gospel; grace can turn your eyes to look to Jesus, for you are only morally incapable of this; that is, you are unwilling, you are sinfully averse to it. Come then, look and live. The lowness of the terms aggravates the guilt of a non-compliance with them. What do those deserve who do not think a salvation purchased with the blood of a God worth a look? What drudgery do you endure, what hardships do you voluntarily undergo, to procure some of the specious toys of this world? What a difficult regimen will you submit to, what nau

seous potions will you take, for the recovery of the health of your mortal bodies? And will you not take the trouble of a look for the salvation of your immortal souls? How eagerly will you accept the offer of any temporal advantage! and will you neglect this invitation to look and live? Especially, when,

3. It is Immanuel, our incarnate God, that invites and commands you to look to him, and be saved. You may trifle with the commands of an usurper, and reject the treacherous invitations of an enemy; but dare you trifle with the injunctions, dare you refuse the gracious invitations of our supreme King and heavenly friend?— That it is Christ who here calls us to look to him, is evident from the application of this context to Christ by the apostle: "To this end Christ both died and rose, and revived, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living. For it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." Rom. xiv. 9-11. Which words, according to the Hebrew, you find in the verse following my text. See also Phil. ii. 9-11. Moreover the characters here predicated concerning the Lord Jehovah, most properly belong to Christ, according to the dialect of the New Testament; "Surely shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength." Now we know that Christ is everywhere represented as our righteousness and strength, " In the Lord shall the seed of Israel be justified," verse 24, 25, which is spoken most properly of Christ, through whom alone we can be justified. It is therefore the voice of our Immanuel that sounds so delightfully in our text. It is his voice which

spoke this goodly universe into being out of its original nothing; which said, Let there be light; and there was light; and dare we disobey his voice by whom all things were created? Col. i. 16. He spoke us into being, and we obeyed; and shall we, when blessed with existence, resist his almighty call? It is his voice whom angels obey; Gabriel, and all his flaming ministers, fly at the first hint of his sovereign pleasure. Nay, universal nature hears his awful mandate, and all her laws are observed, or cancelled according to his pleasure. Events natural and supernatural are equally easy to him. And is this the majestic voice which sinners hear sounding in