yourselves; unable either to commence or maintain this spiritual life? Despair not of relief: the Lord God waits to be gracious by infusing this immortal principle; "he is exalted in shewing mercy, by perfecting strength in your exceeding weakness. I will put my SPIRIT within you," is his promise of love, "I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David: I will put my laws in their minds and write them in their hearts: I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a pecple." Encouraged by these and innumerable other promises, believing that he who hath promised is infinitely faithful, draw near and supplicate in the language of the publican, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner; breathe mightily on my slain, that they may live; only speak the word and thy servant shall be healed; the slave of corruption shall become a child of God and an heir of everlasting life: Whatever else thou art pleased to withhold, deny me not the assurance of thy love and an interest in thy great salvation: Seeing thou hast not spared thine only Son, but didst deliver him up for our guilty, polluted, perishing world, wilt thou not with him freely impart all that I need for enriching me both in time and eternity."

4. Let those, who have some scriptural evidences of being alive to God, be taught from this doctrine that to his rich, unmeri

ted, self-moving grace they are indebted for this unutterable blessing. To such I may repeat the language of this apostle to the believing Ephesians, "God, who is rich in mercy, for the great love wherewith he loved you; even when you were DEAD in sin hath quickened you together with Christ." Are there not multitudes of your own acquaintances; some that were perhaps nurtured at the same breasts, trained up in the same family, educated in the same school, instructed under the same ministry, who enjoyed equal opportunities both publicly and privately that are to this day DEAD? They are yet lying under the accumulated guilt of their nature and lives: The wrath of God hangs over them, and they are, notwithstanding, at ease in Zion; devoted to the pursuits and pleasures of a perishing world. Who hath made you to differ from such? Who taught you to see, while they remain spiritually blind, and raised you to life while they continue dead? "He that bath wrought you for the self same thing is God, who hath also given you the earnest of the spirit, until the redemption of the purchased inheritance unto his own glory." Great, infinitely great are your obligations. to Jehovah the spirit for what you already experience, and what yet remains for you in prospect. Once, christians, ye were blind, ignorant of God, of Jesus, of your own spiritual and everlasting interests, but now

you see; the eyes of your understanding are enlightened to know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the saints; once you were afar off, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise," but are now brought nigh by the blood of Jesus Christ; brought nigh by a relation which shall never, never be broken; once you were dead, under sentence of condemnation, groaning beneath a weight of guilt which might sink a world to hell, but are now legally alive, are completely accepted through the righteousness of Jesus the surety, and unalienably entitled to the inheritance of heaven. Could you only conceive the ten thousandth part of what has been freely forgiven you, or the mercies which are laid up for you in store, you could do nothing but wonder and adore; your hearts must be all gratitude, and your lips must constantly overflow with the melody of thanksgiving. "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." Depend each day and hour and in every appointed mean on the gracious spirit. for perfecting that good work which he has already begun. As he is the author he must also be the finisher of your spiritual life and consolation: Aspire after greater confor

mity to God as your chiefest glory, and after the more intimate, uniform fellowship of his love as your pre-eminent joy. Amidst all the afflictions of earth be looking forward with confident expectation to the blessedness and the glories of the heavenly world.

To Father, Son and Spirit, who, moved by the richest grace, begin and perfect our salvation, be ascribed by every heir of this salvation glory in the highest now and forever. AMEN.

SERMON V.

Reconciliation with God unattainable by hu-man performances.

ROMANS, ili 10.

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight,

THIS verse is properly an infe

rence drawn from the preceding verses. The apostle had been confirming the doctrine of human corruption; he had been proving that it was universal, extending to all mankind, to each individual whether male or female, in every period of time, and every nation under heaven. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh

Light of

after God; he argues that this corruption was universal extending not only to mankind in general, but to all the thoughts, the words, the actions of each individual; their throat is an open sepulchre, like a medium through which the abominations of the corrupted heart issue forth, "with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; there is no fear of God before their eyes;" he afterwards exhibits the fearful consequences of this corruption, that we are thereby involved in guilt, and exposed to destruction and shut up, like a criminal already tried and convicted, without. any excuse or apology. "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped, and that the whole world may become guilty before God."

In the verse which has been read for our present consideration, the apostle sums up the argument, & asserts that salvation is altogether unattainable by any righteousness of our own. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight; "formerly," as if he had said, "I have proved that all the world is become guilty before God; now I assert that they cannot, by any services which they perform, atone for that guilt, or secure themselves from future condemnation."

The law, so frequently mentioned in this and the other epistles of Paul, some