Cross the fountain springing up from his blood for sin and uncleanness; for in that fountain you must wash by faith, (which is the gift of the Holy Spirit,) if you would ever hope to be clean; and to that Cross must God the Father draw you, if you would burst asunder the bonds of sin, and hell, and break forth into that glorious liberty wherewith the Son of God shall set you free. Wait not till you have repented a little more, and performed a few more religious duties; but look to Him whom God hath exalted to give you repentance, Acts v. 31; and, flinging yourself at the foot of the Cross, lift up your voice to him to take away your heart of stone and give you the heart of flesh; to pour upon you the spirit of grace and supplication; and to open thoroughly your blinded eyes that you may look steadily at Him whom your sins have pierced, and mourn for that guilt which could call for so awful a sacrifice to satisfy the justice of God. O why will you die in sight of the waters of life? Why will you perish with the multitude when the Saviour's invitation has gone forth, "Look unto me all the ends of the earth, and be ye saved." But in order to be saved " you must be born again of water and of the Spirit," that is, you must have a new nature; become " a new creature, old things must pass away, behold, all things must become new." God must give you a new heart and a new spirit; he must bring you out of the world, and turn you to worship him in the daily and hourly spirit of your mind, John iv. 24, not judging how you must be saved from the opinions of a dark world which lieth in darkness, but using much prayer, and diligently searching God's blessed word that you may be taught of his Spirit. but Once more, remember you are sick unto death, Christ your Physician is nigh; in yourself you are helpless, but in him you are all powerful to do all things; as he must be the Author, so will he be the Finisher of your salvation. What must you do? What but freely receive the gift of God!-salvation in Jesus. Dream not of earning it; at the best you are an unprofitable servant. It is freely given you, seek not to purchase it by any filthy rags of your own righteousness. It has been already wrought out."It is Finished," said Christ on the cross; seek not then to add to what Christ has accomplished, and thus dishonour the glorious and all-perfect work of the Son of God! Lastly, distinguish between that righteousness which must make you meet and prepared for the kingdom of heaven, yet which so far from justifying or helping to save you must need itself God's pardon because it is imperfect and defiled, and that work of Christ in whom alone you can receive pardon, peace, adoption, and a robe of spotless righteousness your beauty and your glorious dress throughout eternity; washed white in the blood of the Lamb, and prepared for all the saints who are and shall for ever be complete in him. A THANKSGIVING SERMON. JEREMIAH v. 23–25. "But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone. Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of harvest. Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you." So spake the Prophet in the name of his God to the Jews, a people not more remarkable for their peculiar mercies than for their peculiar ingra titude in the midst of them. How many are there in this highlyfavoured land to whom we must bring the same message! "Let us now fear the Lord our God."-Various motives may well lead us to the fear of God, -his power, able to cast body and soul into hell: his goodness and love, manifest in all his works, Psalm ciii. 1-5; and a special instance of his love is, that he " giveth rain, both the former and the latter in his season." To this as one of the grand means by which provision is made for the supply of man's temporal wants the Apostle refers as an evidence of his goodness, "Nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness," Acts xiv. 17. Of his power in contrast with the power of idols, "Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? Art not thou he, O Lord our God? therefore we will wait upon thee; for thou hast made all these things," Jer. xiv. 22. As to the want of it, "Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, and covered their heads. Yea the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass. And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass,” Jer. xiv. 46. See also the case of Ahab and Elijah, as related in the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of the first of Kings, and referred to by the Apostle James v. 17. And truly he that is deaf to the voice of his benefactor betrays a state of mind most hardened and hopeless; such was the case with the people of Israel in their ungrateful returns to God as shewn in our text: such, how continually, are ours, alas ! surrounded as we are with his mercies! "The early and the latter in his season," producing "first the blade, then the ear;" but what shall this avail except "he reserve unto us the appointed weeks of harvest :" but, saith the Lord, “While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease," Gen. viii. 22. "Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of men!" But when the case is otherwise, when the corn is blasted before it be grown up, or in part or in whole destroyed or made useless by immoderate rains, which would have been the case this year had those rains continued a few days longer. way of accounting for this? Can we find no "Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have turned away good things from you." Whence the deluge of rain that drowned the world? The wickedness of man which was great in the earth. Whence the famine in Ahab's days, but that Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him? Whence the diseases of Egypt which God brought upon the Israelites, but for the people's rebellion and unbelief? Whence David's pestilence, but from the anger of the Lord against Israel's sin? What mean all those threats as recorded in Deut. xxviii. 21-24, if God have not a hand in the matter? Yet all these things might have been accounted for by what men call natural causes. But while fools dream only of natural or second causes, till in their calculations they leave out God altogether, either as a God of judgment or of mercy, "whoso is wise will doubtless observe these things," Psalm cvii. 44. The Church has proved her wisdom in teaching us to observe these things in her forms of prayer and of praise. In the form of prayer for fair weather we acknowledge that for our iniquities we worthily deserved that plague of rain and waters' which made us tremble for the fruits of the earth; tremble, I say, for though sure of the general promise, how did we know but that our iniquities might make a particular exception? But when we prayed that the effect of sending such weather as that we might receive the fruits of the earth in due season,' we prayed thereby to be taught two things.-First, by his punishment, to amend our lives. And this implies that we look upon the withholding, in part or in whole, the blessings of an abundant harvest as a punishment. The end of punishment, while the day of grace lasts, is amendment; and such judgments are often sent on purpose to make us feel that which we are wont to |