tion of your condition, that "you are without God." In contrast with this stands the immortal blessedness of the children of God, who are partakers of His nature, sharers of His counsel, the agents of His will, and the heirs of all that infinite love can bestow upon finite beings, of His own bliss and glory. The only alternative that is open to you is to be without God or in God, and that is just the alternative of heaven or hell. You are now without God, and the question is, How can one so estranged from God be reconciled to Him? How can a child of wrath become a child of God? Your sin raises a barrier between you and God which you cannot surmount. If God were to receive you as you are, by a mere act of clemency, He would (do you not shudder at the impious thought?) declare Himself to be as indifferent to the evil of sin as you are, make Himself a partaker of your guilt, and join with you in the overthrow of all righteousness. Can anything be more impossible than this?

In this awful straight, Christ meets your case. You are like a poor outcast, perishing on some solitary and barren rock of the ocean. It would only mock your misery to lead you to that rock's giddy brink, and across an awful chasm, impassable as the great gulf fixed between Abraham and Dives, show you the smiling home of a Father in the midst of a land of teeming abundance. Some men speak of Christ as though He were only a guide come to show us the way; but what could a guide do for that poor outcast but tantalize him with the view of inaccessible happiness? The gospel proclaims to you that the awful chasm is bridged overChrist has borne our sins on His own body on the tree, and has satisfied every claim of divine justice against the sinner; and now He proclaims, "I am the way." The way is open to your reconciliation with God; and by that open

way a Father stands, with outstretched arms, crying to the poor perishing outcast, "Return unto me.”

You are a lost wanderer in a pathless desert, perishing in a waste, howling wilderness; and what would it avail you if a guide should take you by the hand and conduct you to the farthest border of the desert, only to leave you at the foot of a frowning rampart of inaccessible rocks, towering up mountain high, around whose summit lightnings forever flashed and thunders rolled, while beyond this insurmountable barrier of your guilt Paradise lay in the eternal sunshine of God's love? Who can silence these awful thunders, and cleave a way for you through that mountain barrier? The gospel proclaims that Christ has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, so that justice, fully satisfied, no longer forbids our approach. Christ Himself proclaims, "I am the way." But you must remember He is the only way. To attempt to win God's favor by anything of your own, is as if the outcast on the rock, turning from the way of sure escape, should, in his pride of heart, attempt to leap across the awful chasm, only to plunge into its horrible darkness, and be engulfed in its wrathful billows. "I am the way," he says; "No man cometh unto the Father but by me."

CHRIST IS THE TRUTH.-The discovery of a way to any place would be of no value to one who had no desire to go there, who would not or could not go. This is your case, sinner, when Christ reveals himself to you as the way to the Father. Desolate and wretched as you must forever be without God, you would take any way rather than the way that leads to Him. You would, perhaps, prefer annihilation to meeting with God, because your heart is estranged from its proper centre, and you are full of errors and misconceptions regarding Him. The belief of Satan's lie regarding the character of God was the source of all the

pollution and wretchedness of fallen man. You hate His holiness, you dread His justice, you deny His love. You regard Him as your enemy,-an austere tyrant, who thwarts and opposes you, and at whose hands you expect nothing but destruction. Consequently, though every barrier is removed, you will not come unto Him until your views of God's character are wholly changed.

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Now Christ meets you with the intimation, "I am the truth." He is not merely a teacher come to reveal a doctrine regarding God. He is Himself the truth,-the truth is in Jesus. He that hath seen Me," he says, "hath seen the Father." He is the revelation of God, and the sum of the revelation is, "God is love." God speaks in the gracious words of Him who spoke as never man spoke. God acts in those mighty deeds of grace, and help, and healing; "The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." You see the pity of God in the tenderness of the compassion of the Man of sorrow. You see the grace and mercy of God when you see the Holy One stretching out a helping hand to the fallen, till He became known as the friend of sinners. You see the long-suffering love of God when you see Jesus led like a lamb to the slaughter; and if, on the cross, Jesus declares God's righteous hatred of sin, He also manifests the unfathomable wonder of God's love to the sinner. Look upon the crucified One, and hear Him say, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;" and is this He whom you account your enemy, against whose oppressions you revolt, from whose severity you shrink in guilty fear? What cruel wrong you have been doing to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. One look at the truth, one glance at God in Christ, must surely awaken in your contrite hearts the resolution, "I will arise and go to my Father." Well, then, there is none to forbid. The way is open, and Christ

himself is the assurance of the welcome that awaits you; He is the truth.

CHRIST IS THE LIFE.-Though the way to a place were known, though all its attractions and advantages were revealed, and a thousand motives for going there were urged, all would be unavailing to him who could not go there, who had no eye for its attractions, and no capacity to use or enjoy its advantages. This is your case, sinner. You are not only guilty and estranged from God, you are dead in trespasses and sins. The only life you know has its objects in this world, and its enjoyment in the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. What could such a life be in the presence of God? His very perfections would be its dread and its destruction. Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Here, also, Christ meets you, not with proposals to invigorate the old nature, to refine its grossness, or repair its defects, but to be a new and divine life to you. He says, "I am the life,"the overflowing fountain from which every stream is filled, the vine which sends its vital power to the remotest branch, that it may bring forth fruit.

When you consider that it is his own life that he communicates to the believer-it is "Christ in you, the hope of glory”—you will perceive that this is precisely what you need to fit you for the presence and the enjoyment of God. You are, by the very fact of receiving it, a child of God, not only in name, but in nature; for out of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. Grievously, alas! this life is hindered in its manifestation through this body of sin and death. But it is there,―he that believeth on the Son hath life. And in what heavenly perfection shall that life be manifested when all that now obscures it is removed, and it finds a fitting organization in a body fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body; for when He shall appear we

shall be like Him. But remember that as Christ is the way, and there is no other, so Christ is the life, and there is no other; for "he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."

What more

Well, then,

sacrifice of

Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. do you need? You are guilty and condemned. here is Christ, who hath put away sin by the Himself. The way is open for your reconciliation to God In your estrangement you shrink from God in guilty fear. Well, then, in Christ you behold God pleading with you to return, conquering enmity by tenderness, meeting all your sin with the riches of His grace, hastening to greet the returning prodigal, stretching out the arms of paternal welcome, and rejoicing over the lost found. You are dead in trespasses and sins. Well, then, here is life, divine life, in all its holy affections and spiritual power. He offers Himself now in all His fulness to your confidence. Believing in Him, you are in the presence of God as Christ is; complete in Him, made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light a child of God, and, if a child, then an heir,-an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. What could be added to all this? and yourself being judge, how can you escape if you neglect so great salvation?

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