was in the mercy of God and his heart joyful in God's salvation," means something very different with the Lord's people now, from what it meant with them under the former dispensation. We have no happiness as we have no safety, in contemplating God out of Christ, for out of Christ he is to every one of us, "a consuming fire, and one that by no means will clear the guilty." The salvation wrought by Jesus was a salvation not from swords reeking with blood,not from foes burning with rage,-not from the pressure and pang of life's many and diversified troubles, no, nor from the gloom and the unavoidableness and the terror of death itself,but a salvation from the curse and penalty of sin, a salvation from the withering frown of God's offended Majesty,-a salvation from the terrors of hell,—a salvation from the doom of unreconciled, unpardoned guilt, a salvation from the chaining grasp and clutch of a most remorseless foe, a salvation, in a word, that has thrown open the doors of heaven, and secured an eternal inheritance within them, for all that know him spiritually who died to purchase it for them.

And therefore it is impossible to propose a truer test to our own souls than this,-if we, with the apostle, do not "rejoice with joy unspeakable," when we contemplate this salvation, we are none of his "we have no part or lot in the matter,"-for us "Christ hath died in vain,'

for us there is no hope of final peace and safety, of final joy and blessedness;—while, on the other hand, if we are united to our Redeemer by a living faith, it is equally certain that this salvation is a joyful sound indeed to our ears, and there is no topic, connected with his appearance in the flesh, on which we linger with more heartfelt delight, and for the benefits of which we pour out a more animated thanksgiving, than that of "the treasure laid up in the heavens which faileth not," obtained and secured for us by the voluntary expiation of our guilt, and the voluntary redemption of our souls, wrought out by the sacrifice of his own precious life. Can we, then, too soon or too eagerly put it to our souls, whether or not our spiritual state is of this healthy character; whether, I mean, we hang with joyous gratitude over those evidences in his word, of a ransom completed for us when in captivity, and a pardon procured for us when under condemnation, or whether we are in a state so awful and deluded, as in any degree to disown both our captivity and condemnation; and virtually to deny the necessity of redemption and mercy? Never can this point be too much insisted upon from the pulpit. Too much did I say?-never can it be enough insisted upon,— it is the very marrow of pure divinity; and your ministers had better all their days eat the husks that are cast out for the common field-swine,-than

on a single one of their days of pastoral communion with you, feed you with that mere shell of Christianity which the most learned and eloquent ministration in the world must be, that does not, before all things, seek to bring you to the cross, as altogether self-renouncing sinners, crying to the Saviour's blood for mercy, and looking to the Saviour's righteousness for acceptance! They who have experience in divine things,- they whose spiritual-mindedness has acquired much of habitual and fixed principle,-they who have long clung to the Saviour alone, and have consequently had the peace imparted to them of a growing conformity with him,-they whose affections and tempers have been purified by grace,they who have, with each new year, found this world to have a feebler hold, and the world above a firmer one upon their hearts, they who, through the divine blessing, have been enabled more simply and more truly to walk with God, than they once did, even after conversion to Him, -they whose holiness of life and conversation is so clear as almost to justify our supposing that heaven is already begun within them,—they, in a word, in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells richly, producing in abundance the lovely and peculiar fruit of the gospel-hope, and power, and character, they all have told us in every age gone by, and they tell us in the age now passing away, that a system of religion in which

Jesus is not the beginning and the end is a deceiving tale, and the teacher of it a destroyer of souls, that it wears the face of a friend, while it carries the heart of a foe,—and that what it now offers as honey, proves at last the deadliest of poisons.

Should any one be here, by whom this truth is not received, may God write it on his heart with His own finger! May he awake from his spiritual death, any one here so fatally mistaken as not to see or to own his need of a Saviour! May he convince him of his own unworthiness and helplessness, and lead him to the refuge proposed for returning and sincere penitents! May he make that Saviour precious to his soul, and lead him to account the ransom he purchased for guilty, captive sinners as "the pearl of great," unequalled, inestimable " price." Then, but not before, will he see the full import of the words of our text, for then, but not before, will his heart be joyful in the salvation "by Christ;" then will he "sing of the Lord," because he will discern most clearly and distinctly, that the Lord hath indeed "dealt most lovingly with him."

But, perhaps, besides those with whom "the offence of the cross has not yet ceased," there may be others here to whom a word of affectionate remonstrance may be not unseasonable, though, in the main, thoroughly convinced of the glory of the gospel salvation, and heartily de

sirous of being found faithful unto death in the service of our crucified Master. It is obvious that all such passages in scripture as speak of an overwhelming sense of the Lord's goodness, imply that the speakers took the most expanded views of that goodness, not only as it existed in Him who imparted, but as it related to them who received it. There is a possibility of some of us being theoretically right, on whom the theory has not a commensurate influence: in other words, it is possible that the professing Christian may adopt without reservation the foundation doctrine, that salvation is wholly of grace, who, nevertheless, in some train of thought, or some modification of principle, may seem to infer that salvation is not wholly of grace. Never will this error be consciously cherished in the enlightened mind, though, through the exceeding deceitfulness of sin, it may for a while find entrance there, and tarnish the lustre of its faith in Christ as its free, sole, and perfect Saviour. It is in the fact, that we were wholly hopeless, that Christ's love to sinners shines forth in all its unutterable preciousness, it is in the fact, that we were wholly helpless, that Christ's sacrifice for sinners rises before the mind in unparalleled strength and grandeur,-it is in the fact, that we were wholly without merit, and he wholly without sin, that Christ's ransom for sinners was immeasurably costly,-it is in the fact,