and vague statements of our moral obligations, which are so prevalent in the present day.

It appears, that the Gospel is, what the original word implies, glad tidings, or good news, and this exhilarating character of it should strongly mark and designate our sacred ministrations. Whilst it brings life and immortality to light, and refines and exalts the tone of morality, it opens before us a covenant of mercy founded in the immutable and eternal councils of heaven, and containing such an assemblage of glorious promises, and such free invitations to a participation of them, as are well adapted to subdue that disquietude of mind which arises from a sense of guilt and gloomy apprehensions of the divine displeasure. How benevolent is the spirit and genius of our holy religion in revealing such a scheme of sovereign mercy for the recovery of fallen man! We are not, according to the constitution of our being, sensibly moved by dry and abstract disquisitions upon moral subjects. We are more disposed to form our estimate of the strength and ardour of affection by the sacrifices it voluntarily makes, by the obstacles it surmounts, and by such tangible measures of judgment, than by elaborate reasonings, or by the warmest protestations. What argument can be so affecting, or make such a triumphant

appeal to the heart as that simple, but sublime declaration, God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' We may contemplate the

divine glory in the firmament above us, and its numberless orbs of light; or as it is displayed in the diversified productions of the earth, and more especially in its diurnal and annual revolutions, by which we enjoy the constant succession of day and night, and the harmonious vicissitudes of the seasons: these, and other phenomena of nature, proclaim with a powerful though silent eloquence the majesty and goodness of our great Creator. But these bright manifestations of his perfections are eclipsed by the greater work of redemption,-by the transcendant gift of his only Son,-by His mysterious assumption of the body prepared for Him,, and by His voluntary oblation of it for us men, and our salvation. This is that wonderful and inestimable gift that comprehends all other gifts; it lies at the foundation of our temporal no less than of our spiritual blessings. The primary doctrine of forgiveness, through the seed of the woman,' is that original promise which rises like the morning light upon a benighted and guilty world; and all the subsequent dispensations of the gospel are but the gradual evolution

bly suited is such a proclamation of free and unmerited mercy to operate upon the ingenuous part of human nature, and to become the source of that heavenly hope, which purifies, whilst it consoles the mind. Standing at the foot of the cross, and looking to Him who died thereon, with the eye of penitential faith,—a flood of light, above the brightness of the sun, has often illuminated the gloom of despondency, and tranquillized the tumults of the soul. This light is not that cold speculative light which amuses only the understanding; it is the light of life,—a light that vivifies, invigorates, and warms the affections,-and at the same time enriches the soul with the lovely fruits of righteousness and true holiness. The black Ethiopian may look long enough at the visible sun and not be changed; but he who thus looks to the Sun of righteousness shall be enlightened and transformed into that divine image, which has been so awfully defaced by the fall. For what is the gospel but the gracious interposition of celestial mercy for the deliverance of fallen man! It is mercy coming down from the throne of righteousness in the person of our Redeemer, that she may brighten the prospects, and revive the dejected spirit of the humble penitent.

When all around him is dark and tempestuous, she opens to him a refuge from the storm; safe and secure, he hears the thunders only at a distance, and lifts up his eye to heaven, radiant with hope, and glistening with gratitude. The gospel is emphatically the glory of sinners, not of the innocent, but of the guilty. Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; He came to seek and to save that which was lost, and requires only a serious sense of our need of mercy, and an earnest application for it, that we may obtain it. Indeed the cross of Christ exhibits such an assemblage of all that is sublime and lovely in moral excellence,such unsullied holiness,-such inexorable justice, combined with such an unfathomable depth of divine love, that it tends far above all other subjects in the scriptures, to rectify the inverted order which sin has introduced, and to form the Christian Character. It alone reveals Christ's righteousness in the remission of sin; it magnifies justice in the way of pardoning it, and mercy in the way of punishing it. It shews justice more awful than if mercy had been excluded, and mercy more attractive than if justice had been dispensed with. In short it is a scheme of reconciliation, planned with such unerring wisdom, that it magnifies the law, and makes it honourable; whilst it magnifies the

Hence both the sinner and the law have just ground to glory in the cross of Christ, as the wisdom and the power of God unto salvation.

Whilst we may and ought to trace out, (as far as the scriptures authorize,) the deep and manifold wisdom of God in the congruity or adaptation of the means to the accomplishment of this great momentous end, and thus endeavour to confirm our faith by concentrating the different component parts of the gospel into one grand simultaneous view, we must still remember that this enlarged consideration of the internal evidence and harmony of truth ought not to divert us from a pre-eminent regard to the doctrine itself,-to that amazing and transcendent expression of love, by which our salvation was finished, by which death was disarmed of his sting, and the kingdom of heaven opened to all believers. This tremendous hour was the noon-tide of everlasting love,-the meridian splendor of eternal mercy. All the preceding manifestations were like the obscure twilight, that shines more and more to the perfect day;' and that perfect day, which dispelled the shadows of Judaism, was, when Christ hung suspended upon an ignominious cross, and darkness covered the