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ed, and persecuted day by day. Wickedness employed all its hostility against him; its pride and cunning; its malice and wrath; calumniated his name, invaded his peace, and hunted his life. By his friends he was betrayed and forsaken. By his enemies he was accused of drunkenness and gluttony, of impiety and blasphemy, of being the friend of sinners, and the coadjutor of satan. From the agonies of Gethsemane he was conveyed successively to the iniquitous tribunal of the Sanhedrim; to the bloody hall of Pilate; to the cross; and to the tomb. At the close of a life, spent in bitterness and sorrow, he consummated all his sufferings, by undergoing that last and greatest of all evils, the wrath of God, poured out upon him as the substitute for sinners.

All these things he foresaw, when he brought these tidings to mankind. They were always before him; and were indispensable parts of that Mediation, which he voluntarily assumed. They were undergone, therefore, in a continual anticipation. Every day he was literally, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. In the full view of them all, he came to this world, to proclaim peace and salvation to those, who despised, rejected, and persecuted him; who nailed him to the cross, and compelled him to the grave. To these very men he announced all good; himself; his favour; his kingdom; his house; his presence; his everlasting joy. Think what tidings these are. Think to whom they are published.

Thus, from a summary view of this subject, Christ, in publishing these tidings to mankind, appears invested with supreme amiableness and beauty. No attribute, which forms, no action which becomes, the perfect character, is wanting in him. With all things in his hands; with all excellence and enjoyment in his mind; he pitied us, miserable worms of the dust; descended from heaven; became man; lived, and died, and rose again; that we might live for ever. With his own voice he proclaimed, in the tidings of the text, the very things, which he has done, and suffered, and the infinite blessings, which in this manner he has purchased for mankind. "There is now," he cries, "glory to God in the highest, while there is peace on earth, and good-will towards men. In this ruined world, so long enveloped in darkness, so long deformed by sin, so long wasted by misery; where

guilt, and sorrow, and suffering, have spread distress without control, and mourning without hope: where war and oppression have ravaged without, and remorse and despair consumed within; where Satan has exalted his throne above the stars of God, while its sottish millions have bent before him in religious worship; in this ruined world, where, since the Apostasy, real good was never found, and where tidings of such good were never proclaimed; even here, I announce the tidings of expiated sin; a pardoning God; a renewing Spirit; an opening heaven; and a dawning immortality. Here peace anew shall lift her olive branch over mankind. Here salvation from sin and woe shall anew be found: and here God shall dwell, and reign, the God of Zion. Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden; and I will give you rest. Incline your ear, and hear, and your soul shall live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. The Spirit of JEHOVAH is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with garments of salvation; he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness; as a Bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments; as a Bride adorneth herself with jewels."

Every Messenger of good news is, of course, desirable and lovely in the eyes of those, who are deeply interested; and a part of that lustre, belonging to the tidings themselves, is by a natural association diffused around him, by whom they are borne: especially because he is regarded as voluntarily announcing good to us, and as rejoicing in our joy. How glorious, how lovely, then, does Christ appear, when coming with all the inherent splendour and beauty of his character, and the transcendent dignity of his station, to proclaim to us tidings infinitely desirable, of good infinitely necessary and infinitely great? Men to him were wholly unnecessary. Had all their millions been blotted out of the kingdom of God; they would not even have left a blank in the creation. With a word he could have formed, of the stones of the street, other millions, wiser, better, and happier; more

dutiful, and more desirable. How divinely amiable does he ap pear, when the tidings, which he brings, are tidings of his own arduous labours on our behalf, and of his own unexampled sufferings: labours and sufferings, without which good tidings could never have reached us, and real good never been found in this miserable world? How divinely amiable does he appear, when, notwithstanding the apostasy and guilt of the race of Adam, he came, of his own accord, to publish these tidings of immortal good to rebels and enemies; and while proclaiming them, rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, and found his delights with the sons of men.

What, then, must be the guilt, what the debasement, of those, who are regardless of the glorious declarations, hostile to the benevolent designs, and insensible to the perfect character, of this Divine herald? How blind, and deaf, and stupid, must they be to all that is beautiful, engaging, and lovely? How grovelling must be their moral taste? How wonderful their neglect of their own well-being? How evidently is their ingratitude as the sin of witchcraft, and their stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry? Were these tidings to be proclaimed in hell itself; one can scarcely fail to imagine, that all the malice, impiety, and blasphemy, in that dreary world would be suspended; that fiends would cease to conflict with fiends; that sorrow would dry the stream of never-ending tears; that remorse would reverse, and blunt, his stings; that despair would lift up his pale front with a commencing smile; that the prisoners of wrath, (then prisoners of hope,) would shake their chains with transport; and that all the gloomy caverns would echo to the sounds of gratitude and joy. In our own world, once equally hopeless, these tidings are actually proclaimed. What must be the spirit of those, who refuse to hear?

But, O ye followers of the Divine and compassionate Saviour; infinitely different is the wisdom, displayed by you! When this Divine Messenger proclaims to you peace and salvation; when he informs you that he has died, that you may live; when he demands. of you cordially to embrace his atonement, and accept his intercession, you cheerfully hear, believe, and obey. Conscious of your own guilty character, and ruined condition, you have yielded yourselves to him, with all the heart, in the humble, amiable, penitent, VOL. II.

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exercise of faith and love; and finally chosen him as your own Saviour. On your minds his image is instamped; in your life his beauty shines with real, though feeble, radiance: in your character his loveliness is begun in your souls his immortality is formed. On you his Father smiles, a forgiving God. On you his Spirit descends with his sanctifying and dove-like influence. To you his word unfolds all his promises; his daily favour; his everlasting love. To you hell is barred; and all its seducing and destroying inhabitants confined in chains. Heaven for you has already opened its everlasting doors; and the King of glory has entered in, to prepare a place for you. The joy of that happy world has been already renewed over your repentance. The Spirit of truth conducts you daily onward in your journey through life, and in your way towards your final home. Death, your last enemy, is to you deprived of his strength and sting; and the grave despoiled of its victory. Your bodies will soon be sown in the corruption, weakness, and dishonour of your present perishable nature, to be raised in the incorruption, power, and glory, of immortality. Your souls, cleansed from every sin, and stain, and weakness, this Divine Messenger will present before the throne of his Father without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; to be acquitted, approved, and blessed. In the world of light, and peace, and joy, enlarged with knowledge, and refined with evangelical virtue, he will unite you to the general assembly of the first-born, and to the innumerable company of Angels; will make you sons, and priests, and kings to God, and cause you to live, and reign, with him for ever and ever. All things will then be yours; you will be Christ's ; and Christ will be God's. Anticipate, and by anticipation enjoy to the full, this divine assemblage of blessings; they are your birth-right. But, while you enjoy them, deeply pity, and fervently pray for, your foolish, guilty, and miserable companions.

SERMON LXIV.

CONSEQUENCES OF CHRIST'S MEDIATION.

JUSTIFICATION.

JUSTIFICATION BY THE FREE GRACE OF GOD.

ROMANS iii. 24.

Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus.

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In the series of sermons, which I have preached hitherto, as part of a system of Theology, I have considered the Existence and Perfections of God; the Disobedience and Apostasy of Man and the Impossibility of his justification by his own righteousness; the Covenant of Redemption, made between the Father and the Son the Character, Mediation, and Offices, of Christ. The former class of subjects constitutes what is frequently called the Religion of Nature; the latter, the first branches of the Christian, or Remedial system, grafted upon that religion. Perfect beings are justified by their own obedience; since they fulfil all the demands of the divine law. To them, therefore, the religion of nature is amply sufficient to secure their duty, their acceptance with God, and their final happiness. Sinful beings cannot thus be justified; because they have not rendered that obedience, which is the only possible ground of justification by Law. Of course, some other

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