the throne. Thoughts that glow, and words that burn, are every where scattered through his pages. One instance of this, among many which will occur to every pious mind, we have in our text. Never, perhaps, since the gospel was first promulgated to a dying world, has it been more justly or happily described, than in this brief but glowing passage, in which the Apostle styles it the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. I need not inform you that the word, gospel, literally signifies glad tidings. Substitute these words for the term made use of in our text, and you have, the glorious glad tidings of the blessed God. What other sounds, like these, ever vibrated upon mortal ears? What other combination of words could be formed, so full of meaning, of energy, of life and rapture, as this? Who but the fervent Apostle, or rather, who but the Holy Spirit, by whom he was inspired, could ever have formed such a combination? And who does not wish to understand and feel the full import of these divinely inspired, enrapturing words? What ear is not erect, what mind does not expand, what heart does not open and dilate itself, to drink in, the glorious glad tidings of the blessed God, committed to a mortal's trust? Would to heaven, my friends, you could on this occasion hear the import of these tidings fully unfolded; their infinite worth and importance clearly stated. But this you will never hear on earth; for here we know but in part, and, of course, can prophesy but in part; but when that which is perfect shall come, that which is in part shall be done away. Till that day of perfect light shall burst upon us, the day in which we shall know even as we are known, you must be content to see the inestimable treasure of the gospel dispensed from earthen vessels, dispensed in scanty measures, and too often debased by the impurities of the frail vessels which contain it.

In attempting to dispense to you a portion of this treasure on the present occasion, I shall, in the first place, endeavor to show what the gospel of Christ is, by illustrating the description given of it in our text. From this description we learn,

I. That the gospel of Christ is "tidings." This is the most simple and proper conception we can form of it. It is not an abstract truth, it is not a merely speculative proposition, it is not an abstruse system of philosophy or ethics, which reason might have discovered or formed; but it is simply tidings, a

message, a report, as the prophet styles it, announcing to us important intelligence, intelligence of a connected succession of facts; of facts which reason could never have discovered; intelligence of what was devised in the counsels of eternity for the redemption of our ruined race, of what has since been done in time to effect it, and of what will be done hereafter for its full completion when time shall be no more. It is true, that, in addition to these tidings, the gospel of Christ contains a system of doctrines, of precepts and of motives; but it is no less true, that all these doctrines, precepts and motives, are founded upon the facts, communicated by those tidings in which the gospel essentially consists; and that to their connection with these facts, they owe all their influence and importance. Perfectly agreeable to this representation, is the account given us of the primitive preachers, and of their mode of preaching the gospel. They acted like men who felt that they were sent, not so much to dispute and argue, as to proclaim tidings, to bear testimony to facts. Their preaching is styled their testimony, and the very word which we render to preach, literally signifies to make proclamation as a herald. Hence St. Paul speaks of the ministry which he had received to testify the gospel of the grace of God; and St John, referring to himself and his fellow apostles, says, we do testify that God sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. The gospel of Christ, then, essentially consists in tidings; and to proclaim these tidings and testify their truth in connexion with the doctrines and precepts, of which they are the basis, and with the consequences of receiving and of rejecting them, is to preach this gospel as it was originally preached.

2. The tidings which constitute the gospel of Christ are glad tidings; tidings which are designed and perfectly adapted to excite joy and gladness in all who receive them. That they are so, is abundantly evident from the nature of the intelligence which they communicate. They are tidings of an all-sufficient Saviour for the self-destroyed, of an offended God reconciled, of pardon to the justly condemned, of sanctification to the polluted, of honor and glory to the degraded, of deliverance to captives, of freedom to slaves, of sight to the blind, of happiness to the wretched, of a forfeited heaven regained, of life, everlasting life to the dead. And must I prove that these are glad tidings? Does the sun shine? are circles round? is happiness desirable ?

is pain disagreeable? And is it not equally evident, that the tidings we are describing are glad tidings of great joy.

But it may in some cases bé necessary to prove even selfevident truths. To the blind it may be necessary to prove that the sun shines. And in a spiritual sense we are blind. We need arguments to convince us, that the Sun of righteousness is a bright and glorious luminary; that the tidings of his rising upon a dark world are joyful tidings. Such arguments it is easy to adduce, arguments sufficient to produce conviction even in the blind. If you wish for such arguments, go and seek them among the heathen, who never heard of the gospel of Christ. There, see darkness covering the earth, and gross darkness the people. See those dark places of the earth, filled not only with the habitations, but with the temples of lust and cruelty. Enter into conversation with the inhabitants of those gloomy regions. Ask them who made the world; they cannot tell. Who created themselves? they know not. Ask what God they worship, they will point to a plant or animal, a stock or a stone. Ask how the favor of these miserable deities is to be obtained; their priests, their temples, their religious ceremonies with one voice reply, by the performance of rites indecent, cruel and absurd; by tormenting our bodies, by sacrificing our children, by acts of brutish sensuality and diabolical cruelty. Ask them where happiness is to be found, they scarcely know its name. Ask for what purpose they were created, they are at a loss for a reply. They know neither whence they came, nor whither they are to go. View them in the night of affliction: No star of Bethlehem, with mild lustre, cheers or softens its gloom. View them on the bed of sickness: No kind hand administers to them the balm of Gilead; there is no interpreter, no intercessor to say, Deliver them from going down into the pit, for I have found a ransom. Contemplate them in their last agonies. No atoning blood speaks peace to their guilty conscience; no gospel brings life and immortality to their view; no blessed Comforter points to an opening heaven; no kind shepherd goes with them through the dark valley which leads to the dominions of death; no Saviour appears to disrobe the monster of his terrors, or deprive him of his fatal sting, but they are left to grapple with him unassisted and alone. If in this awful conflict they ever seem to display courage and fortitude, it is only the fortitude of

insensibility and the courage of despair. In a word, they live without God, they die without hope, their situation is, in many respects, more wretched than that of the beasts that perish. Yet such, my hearers, would have been your situation, were it not for the gospel of Christ. Who, then, will say that the tidings which it communicates are not glad tidings of great joy?

Are any still unconvinced? Do you demand stronger evidences of this truth? You shall have them. Come with me to the garden of Eden. Look back to the hour which succeeded man's apostacy: See the golden chain, which bound man to God, sundered apparently forever, and this wretched world groaning under the weight of human guilt and of its Creator's curse, sinking down, far down, into a bottomless abyss of misery and despair. See that tremendous being who is a consuming fire, encircling it on every side, and wrapping it as it were in an atmosphere of flame. Hear from his lips the tremendous sentence, Man has sinned, and man must die. See the king of terrors advancing, with gigantic strides, to execute the awful sentence, spreading desolation through the vegetable, animal and rational kingdoms, and brandishing his resistless dart, in triumph over a prostrate world. See the grave expanding her marble jaws to receive whatever might fall before his wide wasting scythe, and hell beneath yawning dreadfully to engulf forever its guilty, helpless, despairing victims. Such was the situation of our ruined race after the apostacy. There was nothing before every child of Adam, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. There was but one road through this world, but one gate that opened out of it,-the wide gate and the broad way that leads to destruction.

My friends, endeavor to realize, if you can, the horrors of such a situation. I am aware that to do this is by no means easy. You have so long been accustomed to hear the tidings of salvation, that you can scarcely conceive of what would have been our situation, had no Saviour appeared. But endeavor, for a moment, to forget that you ever heard of Christ, or his gospel. View yourselves as immortal beings, hastening to eternity, with the curse of God's broken law, like a flaming sword pursuing you, death with his dart dipped in mortal poison awaiting you, a dark cloud fraught with the lightnings of divine vengeance

rolling over your heads, your feet standing in slippery places in darkness, and the bottomless pit beneath, expecting your fall. Then, when not only all hope, but all possibility of escape seemed taken away, suppose the flaming sword suddenly extinguished, the sting of death extracted, the Sun of righteousness bursting forth, painting a rainbow upon the before threatening cloud, a golden ladder let down from the opening gates of heaven, while a choir of angels swiftly descending, exclaim, Behold, we bring you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people; for unto you is born a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. Would you, could you, while contemplating such a scene, and listening to the angelic message, doubt whether it communicated glad tidings? Would you not rather unite with them in exclaiming, Glad tidings, glad tidings, glory to God in the highest, that there is peace on earth and good will to men?

If this be not sufficient, if you still doubt, go and contemplate the effect which these tidings have produced wherever they have been believed. We judge of the nature of a cause by the effects which it produces, and, therefore, if the reception of the gospel has always occasioned joy and gladness, we may justly infer that it is glad tidings. And has it not done this? What supported our trembling first parents, when sinking under the weight of their Maker's curse, and contemplating with shuddering horrors the bottomless abyss into which they had plunged themselves and their wretched offspring? What enabled Enoch to walk with God? What cheered all the pious antediluvian patriarchs through their wearisome pilgrimage of several hundred years? What consoled them in affliction? what supported them in death? Nothing, I answer, nothing but the precious words in which the gospel was first promulgated to a ruined world: The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. This line, this little line, in which the glad tidings are so briefly and obscurely revealed, contains, so far as we know, all the consolation which the children of God enjoyed for almost two thousand years. Here the well-spring of salvation was first opened to the view of mortals; here the waters of life, which now flow broad and deep as a river, first bubbled up in the sandy desert; and thousands now in heaven stooped and drank and live forever, tasting the joys of heaven on earth. The next intimation of the gospel was given to Abraham in the gracious promise, In