Blessing and life, on the one hand, cursing and death, on the other, are set before us. The entire word of God, in its one grand design, is a benediction from beginning to end. It offers wisdom without mixture of error, riches without dross, pleasures without satiety or disgust, honours without pride, blessing beyond all estimate, substantial good, everlasting life. Whereas, this blessed word disregarded leaves a man to ignorance deep and fatal, without one ray of light sufficient to clear the gloom and to guide him heavenward; it leaves him poor and abject in the midst of his gold and silver; the prey of disappointment, though his grovelling hope be all fulfilled; it leaves him to the dishonour of his fallen nature, its unmitigated curse, its endless misery; it leaves him to the second, eternal death. And in making its proposals, the Gospel bids a man decide on the relative value of earth and heaven, of time and eternity. It sounds an alarm indeed, but with the best possible reasons; reasons which must commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God; the reasons of sin, sorrow, and a judgment to come; the reason, also infinite, of that unspeakable gift from heaven, which, if received, will save with an everlasting salvation; if rejected, will leave the sinner to certain destruction, and that without remedy.

But I would now set before you some great particulars of gospel blessedness. In the pardon of sin, that leading blessing, the very commencement of the Christian hope, which brings in its train all those exceeding great and precious promises that minister grace to all God's children-in this blessed day-spring of gospel mercy, the pardon of sin, we have set before us a truth of richest value and overflowing consolation to the soul of him who knows, in any measure, the bitterness of sin, its withering curse, its mortal wound, and (without the Gospel) its utter destruction. Truly, the light is sweet, and liberty is life to the dungeon captive; the restored communion of friends upon earth is inexpressibly cheering and maketh glad the heart of man: but to become reconciled unto God, to receive from Him a distinct promise of complete forgiveness, to be set free from condemnation,

to look forth from the gloomy shroud of guilt and spiritual death upon the risen Sun of righteousness, upon Christ, who gives us light, this surely is the height of all possible blessedness to man upon earth. This grand truth of a divine pardon, so complete in all its gracious consequences, implies not only the blessing of cancelled guilt, but of thorough justification by the imputed merits and righteousness of Him through whom our pardon comes; and so the kingdom of heaven is opened to all believers. And surely that discipline, which is to prepare the pardoned and justified believer for that heavenly state, is no less a blessing than the pardon and justification itself. The washing of regeneration, the renewing of the Holy Ghost, the abolition of sin in its love and reigning power, the principle of a true repentance, the self-denial of that faith which worketh by love, with every other particular of Christian morality; all these in exercise not only work together for the eventual good of the Christian, but they do also confer a present and abundant blessing upon him; he derives a signal and immediate benefit from the possession and operation of every gracious principle and affection within him. Is he poor in spirit? the promised kingdom of heaven makes him rich. Is he a mourner? blessed are the tears which are shed for sin, and which the God of all comfort at last and for ever shall wipe away. Is he a meek disciple of the Lord Jesus? then, however strange it may seem, he inherits the earth, he is a strong man in Christ that ruleth his spirit, stronger than he that taketh a city. Does he hunger and thirst after righteousness? blessed is he, he shall be abundantly satisfied with the goodness of the Lord, his mercy to others shall be blessed with mercy to himself, his purity of heart with the vision of his God. Under the guardian influences of undefiled religion the Christian meets with one continued experience of blessedness; he cannot but be blessed; you mention affliction, poverty, disease, and death-the Christian gives them other names, and upon the sanctifying altar of his faith the carnal becomes spiritual; the trouble of the flesh is an occasion of grace to the spirit, and the storms which shake and shatter every inferior confidence, only operate to prove the

rooted strength of him to whom God in Christ is a rock, and whose cup of blessing the Lord is. Now then, my brethren, in this highest sense, blessing is once again set before you. Divine mercy is expounded to you as the very essence of the Gospel knowledge. We make no mention of God's wrath against those, who will not truly seek an interest in his great salvation. Our first anxiety, our chief delight is to set before you the one comprehensive blessing of life in Christ Jesus-a blessing full and free; we say to every willing soul, in its utmost extremity of guilt, ready to perish, and even hard at death's door, to him we say, Take, O take the cup of salvation; God's merest mercy has mingled it, without any reference to the worthiness of those to whom it is offered; it is mingled not as a reward for righteous deeds, but as the certain antidote to that raging distemper of sin, which has prostrated man's spiritual strength, and set at defiance every method but one, and that is the blessed Gospel of the grace of God.

See then, look to it. I have set before you this day blessing and life. And herein consists the main consolation of our ministry, in that what we present unto you from God's holy Word is free from all mere conjecture and probability; so that every fundamental article of faith and practice which the Christian minister sets before his hearers, he is enabled to state with the full confidence of certain truth. He does not say, that man, being a sinner, peradventure he may find mercy-peradventure he may retrace his wandering footsteps, so as to arrive in heaven at last;-the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not send the poor anxious penitent to his grave, uncertain whether he may be saved or not; for it is written in words of everlasting love, testified by the blood-shedding of the great Sacrifice, with the signature of God's right hand, the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,-it is written irreversibly, a faithful saying indeed, and worthy of all men to be received, that "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." Salvation, then, is the blessing-salvation is eternal life. The things that accompany this salvation are in themselves so essentially good, and so extensive in

their application to the necessities of man, that we may well call Lazarus eminently rich, though having little or nothing in common with Dives-having all things in the possession of Christ and his salvation. The experience of a poor Christian (however poor) must even justify these and such like statements. For truly salvation is grace and glory, including every possible supply, which may consist with the best interests of those by whom that salvation is embraced. Such Such is the sure promise of God's holy word, "The Lord will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." (Ps. Ixxxiv. 11.) The mind of an unrenewed man is so inordinate in calculating for sensual indulgence, that he is apt to hold and esteem that as the blessing which, at the most, was only intended to be instrumental for blessedness, and thus he attempts to grasp as substance the shadows of this present life; with a most ill-placed affection he esteems gold his refuge, and fine gold the crown of his rejoicing, and he calls forbidden pleasures the privileges of human nature, and has been even known to urge the doctrine of man's original corruption as an excuse for the indulgence of unbridled lusts, and as though no remedies of renewing grace had ever been revealed in the word of God. But, as we well know, such remedies do exist, powerful enough to subdue every evil passion, and to break up every evil habit.

Let no man therefore think within himself that he must needs follow the devices and desires of his own heart; that the evil law in his members cannot be successfully resisted; that there is no such thing in this life as true godliness, which is but another term for true blessedness.

My brethren, the gifts of Providence which are seen and temporal, are by no means the fulness of his bounty or the utmost of his store. Nay, the entire harvest remains a reserved inheritance-riches, pleasures, glory, and honour, of which, though we cannot set before you any worthy emblems, selected from the brightest and best of earthly things, yet we do set before you the assurance of them upon the strength of God's unerring word, and by virtue of Christ's redeeming love and

power. It shall never be yours to say, that these things were done in a corner; that the gracious message was whispered to others, and kept back from you, or that you heard only an indistinct report, an uncertain sound, or that the proposal of salvation in your hearing was encumbered by discouraging conditions, and such as would make void the freedom of saving grace. Nothing of all this; but, behold! at God's bidding we set before you an open door, and there, with God's speed, we bid you enter; we tell you of an open fountain, and there we bid you wash and be clean. Blessing without any deserving, everlasting life by the redemption alone of a crucified Saviour;-this is the grace of the Gospel; this we desire to set before you with every assurance of welcome that can cheer the heart, and embolden and confirm the approaching footsteps of every humble and returning penitent. If, however, the sinner will at any time and in any degree take to himself the credit of his own salvation, God will, no doubt, leave him to save himself if he can. The power and merit of salvation cannot be divided between Christ and the sinner; these must entirely belong either to the one or to the other: if at all to man, then entirely to man; if at all to Christ, then, doubtless, He is the first and the last, the Fountain of all blessedness, the exclusive and all-sufficient Source of spiritual and eternal life to a death-stricken world. And yet do we rightly say to the weakest and unworthiest, "Up and be doing; blessing and life are set before you; choose life."

Nor is there any inconsistency in all this. God, indeed, has graciously spread the table. He has furnished the divine and spiritual banquet: He has brought forth the best robe to put upon us,-has bidden us to take courage, because Jesus Christ has died,-to live, because the Saviour lives,-to pray, because that Saviour pleads and prevails as our Advocate. He bids us bring forth fruit from the principles of a renewed nature, because the Spirit of Christ, a mighty worker, enters effectually into every heart that seeks his grace to change and sanctify it. So then the whole of this blessed work is possible to man, because all things are possible with God, who alone