The gates of the kingdom of heaven are thrown open, -the ceremonial law is abrogated-the moral is confirmed; and the successors of St. Peter, in the see of Rome, can give neither furtherance nor obstruction to the business.

So much for the promise of St. Peter. The promise to the church, which is next to be considered, consists likewise of two articles,-that it should be built upon a rock; and that, being so built, the gates of hell should not prevail against it.

The first part of the promise, that the church should be built upon a rock, is contained in those words of our Lord to St. Peter, "I say unto thee, thou art Peter; and upon this rock (or, as the words might be better rendered, upon this self-same rock') I will build my church;"-which may be thus paraphrased: "Thou hast now shown the propriety of the name which I gave thee, taken from a rock; for thou hast about thee that which hath in it the likeness of a rock; and upon this self-same rocky thing I will build my church." We have already seen, that the reason of the name of Peter, given to Simon, lay in the confession which he now made. In that confession, therefore, we must seek the rocky thing to which the name alluded. Of all natural substances, a rock, though not perhaps the most dense, is certainly the most durable, the least liable to internal decay, and the least obnoxious to destruction or damage by any external force; for which reason, the sacred writers often apply to rocky mountains the epithet of everlasting. Hence, a rock is the most apt image that the material world affords of pure unadulterated truth,in its nature, than adamant more firm-more permanent -more insurmountable, These things being put together, what shall we find in St. Peter's confession, which might be represented by a rock, but the truth of it? This, then, is the rock upon which our Lord promises

to build his church,-the faith confessed by St. Peter, in a truth, firm, solid, and immutable.

This being the case, it will be necessary, for the fuller explication of the promise, to consider the extent and the particulars of this faith of St. Peter's.

It is remarkable, that the apostles in general, upon a certain occasion, confessing a faith in Jesus as the Son of God, obtained no blessing. I speak not now of that confession which upon a subsequent occasion was made by St. Peter, in the name of all; but of a confession made before, by the apostles in a body, for any thing that appears, without St. Peter's intervention. We read, in the fourteenth chapter of St. Matthew's gospel, that after the storm upon the lake of Gennesaret, which ceased upon our Lord's entering into the vessel, "They that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God." No blessing follows. Simon Peter, some short time after, confesses, in terms which to an inattentive reader might seem but equivalent, and he is blessed. The conclusion is inevitable, that more was contained in this confession of St. Peter's than in the prior confession of the apostles in the ship,―more, therefore, than in a bare confession of Jesus as a Son of God.

What that more was, will easily be understood, if we take St. Peter's answer in connection with our Lord's question, paying a critical attention to the terms of both. Our Lord puts his first question in these terms: "Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" Then he says, "Whom say ye that I am?" Simon Peter answers, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Our Lord, in the terms of his question, asserts of himself that he is the Son of Man: St. Peter's answer, therefore, connected with our Lord's question, amounts to this: "Thou, who sayest rightly of thyself that thou art the Son of Man, art Christ, the Son of the

living God." St. Peter therefore asserts these three things of Jesus: that he was Christ,-that he was the Son of Man, and that he was the Son of God. The Son of Man, and the Son of God, are distinct titles of the Messiah. The title of the Son of Man belongs to him as God the Son;-the title of the Son of God belongs to him as man. The former characterizes him as that one of the three persons of the ever blessed Trinity which was made man;-the other characterizes him as that man which was united to the Godhead. St. Peter's confession, therefore, amounts to a full acknowledgment of the great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, to destroy the works of the Devil; and the truth of this faith is the rock upon which Christ promises to build his church.

Upon the second article of the promise to the church, "that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," the time compels me to be brief. Nor is there need I should be long. In the present state of sacred literature, it were an affront to this assembly to go about to prove that the expression of "the gates of hell" describes the invisible mansion of departed souls, with allusion to the sepulchres of the Jews and other eastern nations, under the image of a place secured by barricadoed gates, through which there is no escape, by natural means, to those who have once been compelled to enter. Promising that these gates shall not prevail against his church, our Lord promises not only perpetuity to the church, to the last moment of the world's existence, notwithstanding the successive mortality of all its members in all ages, but, what is much more, a final triumph over the power of the grave. Firmly as the gates of Hades may be barred, they shall have no power to confine his departed saints, when the last trump shall sound, and the voice of the archangel shall thunder through the deep.

I have now gone through the exposition of my text,

as much at large as the time would allow, though more briefly than the greatness of the subject might deserve. To apply the whole to the more immediate concerns of this assembly, I shall conclude with two remarks.

The first is, That the church, to which our Lord promises stability, and a final conquest over the power of the grave, is the building raised by himself, as the master-builder,—that is, by persons commissioned by him, acting under his directions, and assisted by his Spirit, upon the solid rock of the truth of St. Peter's faith. That faith was a faith in the Mediatorial offices of Christ, in his divinity, and in the mystery of the incarnation. Whatever may be raised by man upon any other foundation, however it may assume the name of a church, is no part of Christ's building, and hath no interest in these glorious promises. This deserves the serious attention of all who in any manner engage in the plantation of churches, and the propagation of the gospel. By those who have the appointment of itinerant missionaries for the conversion of the heathen, it should be particularly attended to, in the choice of persons for so great an undertaking; and it deserves the conscientious attention of every such missionary, in the prosecution of his work. Whatever may be the difficulty of giving a right apprehension of the mysteries of our religion to savages, whose minds have never yet been raised to the contemplation of any higher object than the wants of the animal life, the difficulty, great indeed, but not inse- u parable to him that worketh with us, must be encountered, or the whole of the missionary's labour will be vain. His catechumens are not made Christians, till they are brought to the full confession of St. Peter's faith; nor hath he'planted any church, where he hath not laid this foundation. For those who presume to build upon other foundations, their work will perish; and it will be as by fire, if they themselves are saved.

The second remark I have to make is no less interesting to us. The promise of perpetual stability, in the text, is to the church catholic: it affords no security to any particular church, if her faith or her works should not be found perfect before God. The time shall never be, when a true church of God shall not be somewhere subsisting on the earth; but any individual church, if she fall from her first love, may sink in ruins. Of this, history furnishes but too abundant proof, in the examples of churches, once illustrious, planted by the apostles, watered with the blood of the first saints and martyrs, which are now no more. Where are now the seven churches of Asia, whose praise is in the Apocalypse? Where shall we now find the successors of those earliest archbishops, once stars in the Son of Man's right hand? Where are those boasted seals of Paul's apostleship, the churches of Corinth and Philippi? Where are the churches of Jerusalem and Alexandria?-But is there need that we resort, for salutary warning, to the examples of remote antiquity? Alas! where, at this moment, is the church of France?-her altars demolished-her treasures spoiled-her holy things prophaned-her persecuted clergy, and her plundered prelates, wanderers on the earth! Let us take warning by a visitation that is come so near our doors. Let us not defraud ourselves of the benefit of the dreadful example, by the miserable subterfuge of a rash judgment upon our neighbours, and an invidious comparison of their deservings with our Let us not place a vain confidence in the purer worship, the better discipline, and the sounder faith, which, for two centuries and an half, we have enjoyed. These things are not our merits: they are God's gifts; and the security we may derive from them will depend upon the use we make of them. Let us not abate-let us rather add to our zeal, for the propagation of the gospel in distant parts; but let us not forget that we have

own.