an enemy by wicked works. In exact proportion however to the facility with which men admit this position, stated in general terms, is the ingenuity which they display in evading the particular, the individual application of it: all confess the weight and pressure of the heavy and galling burthen, but each contrives to shift it from his own to the shoulders of his neighbour and thus, while men receive with implicit credence the melancholy fact, which renders the grace of God indispensible to the recovery of our ruined race, they do not receive the grace of God itself. The reason, as to the great majority, is but too obvious. If no exertion, no sacrifice were required on their parts, they would readily accept the grace of God, because it is "the grace that bringeth salvation;" but they turn aside from the proffered boon, and “judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life," because it makes no compromise with their lusts, and extends no indulgence to their passions, but imperatively requires, that "denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world." The sacrifice of carnal indulgences is to them too high a price to be paid even for Paradise itself.

Such persons should we beseech to receive the grace of God; and beseech the more earnestly and the more constantly, from a conviction at

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once of the imminence of their peril, the urgency of their need, and the transcendant value and indescribable excellency of the grace of God itself; —that grace, which being examined, scrutinized, explored in every part, will be found not only to answer, but to anticipate all that we could desire or implore, even for such persons- all that they could implore or desire for themselves. Thus, does any man feel himself to be under the curse? It proffers him deliverance. Is he liable to condemnation? It provides for his acquittal. Is he walking in darkness? It displays to him the Light. Is he held in bondage to the world and to the devil? It exhibits and ensures to him liberty from both. Does he look on life with uncertainty and apprehension, and recoil from death with horror and dismay? It teaches him to avail himself of the accepted time, to improve the day of salvation, to convert affliction into a preparative for glory, and death into the gate of life. It meets every objection he could possibly advance with any degree of plausibility. If he urges, I am a sinner, it replies, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners;" if he objects, that his sins are multiplied and aggravated, it rejoins that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin;" if he hesitates because sin hath abounded in him, yea even overflowed, it engages that "where sin hath abounded grace shall much more abound;" if he demurs be

cause sin has in time past acquired so complete an ascendancy over him, and so domineered in his corporeal members and in his mental faculties, that it seemed the undisputed, unrivalled lord of body and soul;-even this is met by the answer, that "as sin hath reigned unto death, so grace shall reign through righteousness unto eternal life." If he apprehends, that because of his infirmity he shall not, if he enter the strait gate, be able to proceed, but that his strength will utterly fail long before he arrives at the end of the path; it displays to him the Holy Spirit as willing to help his infirmities, and teach him what to pray for as he ought; it engages, "As thy days are, so also shall thy strength be." If he asks, "How, beset by so many and such great dangers, can I hope to keep myself upright," it rejoins, "Thou shalt be kept by grace through faith unto salvation."

Another motive then, why we should press and urge on our hearers the reception of the grace of God; why we should even implore, beseech them to accept it will not only be found, as we have said, in its complete adaptation to the purpose for which it is designed, but in the aggravated guilt, the fearful risk which they must incur in wilfully neglecting it. Never is an earthly monarch more justly incensed than when his proffer of a free pardon, deigned to rebels who have not even the shadow of an excuse or pretext for rebellion, is

received with indifference, or rejected with contempt; and with greater justice and with fiercer indignation will the Divine judgment descend upon those, who, knowing the doom denounced against the sinner-aware that "they who do such things are worthy of death,"-conscious that pardon and salvation, life and immortality are only to be found in the word of God, deliberately put away from themselves that word, and "judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life." What! is it to be endured, that the Godhead should exert its immeasurable and inconceivable energies; that the divine attributes should combine to plan and execute a "counsel of peace;" that the means adopted for the accomplishment of this great purpose should be in themselves infinitely more arduous and more amazing than the exercise even of the creative energies that produced the world;

is it to be endured that the Infinite should be confined within a tabernacle of clay; that the "Father of the everlasting age" should seem to be circumscribed as to his earthly existence by the ephemeral duration of man; that the Lord of life, who "quickeneth whom he will," should become the victim of death; that the "Glorified before earth was," the Adored of angels, Wonderful, the Counsellor," should be found in "the form of a servant- a man of sorrows and

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acquainted with grief;" that "he who knew no sin should be made sin;" that he who was holy, harmless, and undefiled," and in whom the Lord had declared himself to be well pleased, should be made absolutely and literally A CURSE (it is the Apostle's own term) " A CURSE for us;" is it, I ask, to be endured that all this, at which heaven wondered, earth trembled, hell recoiled, should be done to no end; that the benefit so dearly purchased should be neglected or refused, and that with impunity; that men should imagine, if not that they can do very well without the grace of God altogether, that they may at least dispense with it till the time which shall appear convenient for its attainment? What rational reflective man, could he but divest himself of prejudice, would not reply, that the idea could not be tolerated for an instant; that it would be an insult on the Majesty of heaven; that he who knew and professed to believe all this was wholly inexcusable if he made no effort, no vigorous and sustained and repeated effort, to acquire a persoInal and permanent interest in the things that pertained to his eternal peace? What rational reflective man, I ask, could avoid the conclusion, that the guilt of thus rejecting the grace of God can only be paralleled by the utter madness of [such conduct, and that the condemnation must of