great study. And if you carry the lessons which they teach into the business of every day life, they will always be to you a source of strength when you are feeble, of hope when you are desponding, of joy when you are in sorrow, of consolation when you are dying. May God give you grace thus to deal with them! For then neither age nor infirmity, nor wounds, nor any other of the ills to which flesh is heir, will cut you off from peace while you live, or separate you from your God and Saviour when you die.

SERMON XXV.

WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?

ACTS ii. 37.

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the Apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

I HAVE chosen these words for my text because they are peculiarly suitable to the subject of a discourse, which the reader will do well to consider as a sort of moral, or summing up, to those which have preceded it. Hitherto, I have throughout the whole series been striving to convey to his mind a correct notion of all that God did to work out man's redemption. It is my present

intention to take a different course, by speaking very plainly of the effect which God's goodness ought to produce upon our individual conduct, unless we have made up our minds to sacrifice for ever both souls and bodies in hell. Entreating, therefore, that what has heretofore been said, may be regarded as a mere introduction, I proceed to ask and to answer the most important question. that man can put to himself, "What is the Gospel?"

"What is the Gospel?" I reply, that as far as God may seem to be connected with the inquiry, the Gospel is the record of all that the great Creator has done from the moment at which He moulded the image of clay, and breathed into it the breath of life, down to the hour when, by the resurrection of our Lord, life and immortality were brought to light. The word " gospel" signifies good news; and blessed, indeed, is the message conveyed to us, of a God mighty

indeed to punish, yet prone to forgive; of a Mediator, who himself having suffered, now pleads in His Father's presence for those who are weary of sinning, and desire to be reconciled, and set up their rest in heaven. The Gospel, however, contains much more than this. As far as we are affected by it, it is a statement of the necessity under which we are laid, of keeping our irregular passions in constant subjection; of worshipping our Maker in spirit and in truth; of doing good, of shunning evil; of leading holy, sober, chaste, and pious lives; not because these things are in themselves meritorious; not because they affect the Creator, as a kind or generous action performed by one of us affects his neighbour, but because without living thus we shall be unfit to go to heaven, after the period of our trial here upon earth shall be ended. And why shall we, without this preparation, be unfit? It was in order to come to

this, that I have traced God's dealings down from the creation to the redemption of mankind; and convinced as I am that mortal lips never conveyed to mortal ears information half so important, I pray my fellow-soldiers to weigh carefully, and never to forget the answer which I am called upon to give.

He who looks upon heaven as he would upon a fertile country, a pleasant garden, a splendid palace, or any other place of earthly enjoyment, wherein is contained food for the gratification of the senses, and where every one, if admitted, no matter what his bent or disposition, must be happy, knows nothing of that heaven which the Gospel has revealed, and of which through Christ's merits we are the inheritors. There is no living man that does not carry about in his own bosom, a certificate of admission either into heaven or into hell. Throughout every hour, throughout every moment of