to our fellow-creatures, to sustain an unblameable character, and to direct our views to great and deserving objects. We must efface the image of apostate Adam, and be instamped with that of Jehovah.

What terms, were they left to our own choice, could we devise more easy, more reasonable, more desirable? They are terms indispensably necessary to make us possessed of the blessings given, and they are all that is necessary. They are blessings, great and glorious in themselves, and the efficacious means of immortal blessings. The sacrifices which we make are sacrifices of loss, shame, and ruin; the character which we assume is in itself gain immense and eternal.

VI. The truth of the doctrine is also illustrated by this great fact, that he has completely disclosed the means by which these blessings may be attained. He has taught us all the knowledge useful to this end.

He has taught us the character and pleasure of God, his designs, his providence, and his promises. He has also dis covered to us our character, guilt, danger, and wants. His own excellency and amiableness, the necessity of his interference on our behalf, and the greatness of his love to us, he has proved beyond a question, by his humiliation, life, and death; by every thing which he has done, and by every thing which he has suffered. The truths universally which we must believe, the duties which we must do, the dangers which we must shun, and the means of our escape and safety, he has set before us in language which cannot be misunderstood, unless we choose to misunderstand it. Motives innumerable and infinite he has presented to us in the most affecting forms; purification from sin, and deliverance from woe; the enjoyment of his love; the possession of endless life, knowledge, and virtue, undisturbed safety, peace, and joy, and the communion ́and friendship of the whole body of the wise and good in the great kingdom of Jehovah. All times, places, and things impress these motives on our hearts, and bring them up to our view with an efficacy which cannot be described.

These instructions and these motives he has also caused to

be written with the unerring hand of his own Spirit. The book in which they are contained is thus rendered every day and in every place a certain, standing guide; a closet monitor, a perpetual preacher of righteousness; a visitor at the daily board; a companion in every walk and in every solitude.

To render its monitions and counsels effectual to our salvation, he has sent his own divine Spirit into the world to convince us of sins, of righteousness, and of judgment; to incline us to hear and to obey, to be wise and to be safe; to preserve, comfort, quicken, and direct us in our wanderings, doubts, and dangers; to conduct us in the end to his house and family in the heavens.

To these things he has added his own perfect example, as a complete pattern of righteousness for our imitation, and a glorious combination of motives for our encouragement and support. He has thus taught us how to live and how to die; how to please God, and how to gain a blessed immortality. He has taught us in what manner we may resist temptation, grow in grace, and in favour with God and man, and in the end become meet to be partakers with him in the inheritance which is undefiled and fadeth not away.

Finally, to remove all our doubts and fears, and to seal the truth and certainty of every thing which he has taught and promised, and of every thing which he has undertaken or done, he has voluntarily ascended the cross, and poured out his blood on the accursed tree. In this amazing transaction, he has placed on his instructions and conduct the stamp of infinity, the seal of a God.

REMARKS.

From these observations, which, if I mistake not, place the doctrine beyond debate, we can scarcely fail to remark, in the

First place, The very different views which men and angels have entertained of the character and mediation of Christ, as expressed in their different treatment of this glorious person.

When the Redeemer of mankind was about to appear in this guilty world, Gabriel descended from heaven to announce his advent to Zacharias, and came a second time to declare the same glad tidings to his mother Mary. His actual birth an angel published with peculiar exultation to the Bethlehem shepherds; and, in connection with a choir of his dignified companions, sung his natal hymn, and the goodness and glory of God displayed in his mission, as they rose to the heavens. After his temptation was ended, a band of these celestial beings appeared again, to minister to his wants, and to receive his commands. In the garden of Gethsemane, one of their number came to strengthen him under his agony, charged, as there is good reason to believe, with a message from on high. An angel rolled away the stone from his sepulchre, whose countenance was like lightning, and at whose presence the earth trembled, and the Roman guards became as dead men. Two angels, humbly seated in his tomb, announced his resurrection to his desponding followers. Two angels, in shining garments, comforted and instructed them again when he made his final ascension to the right hand of God. Angels repeatedly appeared to protect, relieve, and guide his disciples in the progress of their arduous ministry. The same heavenly messengers taught Saint John the glorious things which the Apocalypse discloses, concerning all the following ages of time. Throughout the whole multitude of the heavenly host, exquisite joy has been diffused by every victory of the cross over ignorance, sorrow, and sin; and the repentance of one returning sinner has excited, over all the great world of happiness, more transport and higher praise, than the continuance of ninety-nine just persons who needed no repentance in their obedience to God.

How unlike this has been the conduct of men towards the same exalted person? When he was born in Bethlehem, his only mansion was a stable, his only cradle was a manger! When he was less than two years old, a man sought his life with such eagerness, that, to secure his destruction, he murdered every infant of that age in the city in which he was born! When he came forth to his public ministry, although declared by the visible descent of the Holy Ghost upon him, and the

audible voice of the Almighty, to be the Son of God, and the Saviour of mankind, he was still denied, rejected, and persecuted from place to place; and, with a poverty singular and excessive, had not where to lay his head! His whole life was spent in a course of the most sublime virtue, and in performing actions equally wonderful and beneficent; yet he was hated, calumniated, and devoted to death, on multiplied occasions, by the arts and efforts of the guilty ruined beings whom he came to save. By these guilty beings,-his own countrymen and kindred, he was betrayed, falsely accused, and causelessly condemned, nailed to the cross, and consigned to the grave!

With the same spirit have men, in every succeeding age, continually crucified him afresh, accounting the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and done despite to the Spirit of Grace, whom he sent into the world to carry into execution the benevolent design of his life and death. In every age, and in every land, he has been disbelieved, denied, rejected, and followed with scorn and derision, with hatred and persecution. His truth has been stained with every slander, and mocked with every insult. While angels, stooping down from heaven, have eagerly desired to look into the things pertaining to his mediation, human philosophy has been employed in coldly investigating, and roundly denying their truth, reasonableness, and probability; in decrying their wisdom and excellency; and in preferring, without a blush, heathen idolaters, and infidel sophists, debauchees, and villains, to the perfect Redeemer. While the providence of God has been employed in preserving and building up the Church formed of his followers, human power and profligacy have dislocated them on the rack, broken them on the wheel, and roasted them at the stake; turned the house of God into. a field of blood, and converted his altar into a catacomb. Christianity was ushered into this bloody world on the hill of Calvary, and commenced its progress on the cross. Accursed Jews, iron-hearted Pharisees and Sadducees, with a Pilate dyed in blood at their head, began the crimson career. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Pilates, have, in every country, and in every succeeding age, been their numerous progeny. The world has

been one vast Calvary; and crucifixion, torture, and death, have been the common work, the rage, the sport of the race of Adam. Such has been the conduct of angels, such the conduct of men, and such their different views of Christ and his redemption.

II. We learn from the observations made on the doctrine, the disposition, with which these tidings ought to be received by mankind, viz. the same with which they were published by the angel.

That the angel, who brought these tidings, understood their true nature and import, will not be questioned; nor will it be doubted, that he disclosed his real views of them to the shepherds. His declaration might, therefore, well suffice to satisfy us that they are "tidings of great joy." But we are not compelled to rest on his decision only, nor to be governed merely by his views, or those of his illustrious companions. The nature of the message, and the circumstance which attended it, will amply determine the truth of the assertion.

The tidings which this glorious person published, and which his companions repeated in their hymn, are tidings brought to rebels against their Saviour and their God; apostates, condemned to misery and debasement supreme, irremediable, and eternal! They are tidings of deliverance from this debasement and this ruin; of their justification before God at the final trial; a reversal of their sentence; a renovation of their character; and their reinstatement in all their former privileges, blessings, and hopes. They are published to those who before had no hope of deliverance, and no means of escape; who neither knew, asked, nor wished for safety; who hated life, and loved death; who were despised, forsaken, and friendless, through time and through eternity.

They are tidings from heaven, the world of hope, of peace, and of joy; their proper home, the house of their father. They are tidings to prodigals and outcasts; who were destined to wander for ever, who had no place of rest where they might lay their heads. They are tidings from God,—the parent, the Saviour,-whom they had offended, and to whom it was their