every thing and having nothing to give; and on the other, there is a bountiful Sovereign and Lord, who offers every thing freely, and asks no price from the subject of his grace.

The gospel is provided in all its operations as a remedy for existing evil, and as such it is in every part exclusively "the gift of God." If you come back to consider the actual state of a fallen being, the actual condition of your own souls by nature, you will find yourselves to be entirely in a guilty, polluted and helpless condition. In this state of spiritual ruin, God has provided for you a remedy; and he both inclines and enables you to accept and apply that remedy. For your guilt he applies to you the atoning blood of Christ; for your pollution and weakness, he sends the Holy Spirit to bring you to Christ, and to begin and carry on a work of grace within your hearts. By looking to Christ you may obtain peace with God and in your own conscience; and by yielding yourselves to the influences of God's Holy Spirit, you may become renewed and sanctified in all your powers. Your renovated health will begin immediately to appear. You will be enabled to mortify all your former corruptions, and to walk holily, justly and unblamably before God and man, and will become transformed into the divine image in righteousness and true holiness. But to what then shall be ascribed the change which has taken place within you? Will it not be altogether owing to the remedy which God has prescribed and enabled you to apply? To your latest hour you will continue to apply the same remedy; for through the whole of this life you will be only convalescent and not perfectly recovered. And when in the full establishment of your spiritual health, in the heavenly inheritance, you tell the history of your restoration, it will be to the sole honour of that Almighty Physician who visited you in your lost estate, and brought a balm which was adequate to your need. Now is not this perfectly plain and simple? Is it not exactly the gift which every sinner wants for the peace of his mind, and for

the sanctification and salvation of his soul? Yet in this representation, all is of grace. Both the Saviour himself, and unmerited salvation through him, are the free gift of God; and not according to works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy we are saved by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.

I have thus endeavoured to set before you the gospel way of salvation. You find it a way perfectly adapted to your condition and to your necessities. It calls for your sincere thankfulness to God, who has been willing to provide it, and for your cordial acceptance of the gift, while it is so freely presented. But all will be of no avail to you unless you embrace with rejoicing, the remedy which is thus presented. Let not the subject, therefore, be allowed to rest in your understandings unfruitful and barren. Seek to have your hearts interested in it; hear the voice of the Spirit, which says to you, "This is the way, walk ye in it ;" and turn not to the right hand or to the left. Let me beseech you to seek a deep acquaintance with your real state before God, and the application to yourselves of the gracious remedy which is offered you in the gospel.

Had you but a due preparation of heart for the reception of this gospel, were you truly convinced of your unworthiness and danger, the glad tidings of salvation would distil as the dew upon your souls, as the showers that water the mown grass. Did you feel that the sorrows of death compassed you about, and the pains of hell had got hold upon you, in the deep and piercing sense of your own guilt, the sound of salvation purchased by our incarnate God would transport your souls, as it did the angels, when they sung, "Glory to God in the highest; and on earth, peace; good will towards men." Unspeakable joy would spring up in your hearts from the thought of an indwelling God, undertaking your cause and working effectually upon your souls. The great and universal reason

why you hear the gracious invitations and promises of the gospel so inattentively, and with so little effect upon your characters, is, that you are not convinced of your danger. You do not feel and mourn over your lost condition. "They that are whole need not a physician." Because so many of you believe yourselves to be whole, the remedy is heedlessly rejected, and your souls are left to perish. O that God would tear off from your hearts, the veil which Satan and the world are uniting to weave over you, and make you to see the pollutious which are there open to his view! Why are you so anxious to deceive yourselves in this matter? There is a day before you when hell shall be naked, and destruction shall have no covering; when every false excuse shall fail, and every extenuating plea shall become utterly useless; and when, though discovery shall be perfect, it shall be too late to be beneficial. If you are insolvent and ruined, why attempt to delude yourselves with the contrary belief? But are you not? Do you not feel so? Then Jesus is no Saviour to you. You may as profitably own Mahomet or Brahma for your Lord, as Jesus. He will not, he cannot save you till you feel yourselves to be lost. I pray you look at your characters in the mirror of God's infallible word; and while he proclaims that you have altogether gone out of the way, acknowledge the truth of his representation, and be willing that he should bring you back to himself in peace.

Upon this deep acquaintance with your own character and state alone, can be built a proper acceptance of the gospel. However your understandings may be enlightened with a knowledge of the gospel way of salvation, it will profit you nothing while this knowledge is merely speculative. Though the patient in the hospital should deliver a lecture upon his own disease, and the adaptation of the remedy to his want, it would avail but little should he still refuse to apply the remedy to himself. If you neglect the gracious remedy of

the gospel, or substitute any other in its stead, you do so to your eternal ruin. I beseech you to look to Christ by his Holy Spirit, for the justification, and the sanctification of your souls. In no other conceivable method can you find salvation from the condemnation of the law, the bondage of sin, and the everlasting punishment of hell. There is no other name given for salvation, but the name of Jesus, and that name is worse than useless to you, unless it be permitted to dwell in your heart, as your hope and comfort. Yield yourselves to his power. Be willing to be saved by grace through faith; and so receive the unspeakable gift of God, that his power may operate within you, to bring you home to that fold of ransomed sinners, which is under one shepherd, Jesus Christ, the Great Bishop and Shepherd of souls.

LECTURE III.

THE HISTORY OF THE GOSPEL.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people.

As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began."-ST. LUKE, I. 68–70.

In one previous discourse, we have considered the great object which the gospel designs to accomplish; "to seek and to save that which is lost." In another, I have spoken of the way which the gospel lays open for the attainment of this object, which is "by grace through faith, as the gift of God."

Before I proceed to consider several distinct attributes and characteristics of the gospel, I wish in my present discourse to set before you the history of the gospel. By this expression, I do not mean the narrative of facts which the writings of the Evangelists contain, but the history of the gospel itself, as a dispensation to man, showing its origin and its progress, in the clear manifestations of its grace to those for whom it was designed, since the fall of man.

As an appropriate introduction to this subject, I have selected this text from the sacred hymn which Zacharias uttered at the circumcision of his son. This hymn was spoken by the immediate inspiration of God, for it is said, "that Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied" in the