such a proof of it needed? why must the onlybegotten Son of God be thus given? We cannot carry our thoughts fully up to the awful declaration which is here made of God's holiness, of his abhorrence of all evil. It costs us so little to forgive our own sins, and we are so indulgent to those of others, when we ourselves do not suffer from them, that we naturally conceive of God after the same fashion. The savage and the half

civilized man thinks that he can bribe God to forgive him, by costly or by painful sacrifices; the philosopher,-I may well say so, since in this they were all agreed, and thought it folly to think otherwise,—the philosopher thinks that sacrifices are not needed, for that the goodness of God cannot visit with severity the faults of his creatures. But He who is in the bosom of the Father has declared to us that evil must cease to be evil, or that it must be destroyed from out of the kingdom of God; that God's love to us would spare even his own Son to save us from destruction, but that God's holiness must have destroyed us-yea, must and will now destroy us-if we lay not hold of the redemption which he has offered. This is the love of God, not to pass over our sins, but to give his own Son to be the pro

pitiation for our sins. And this proof of his love shows what must come to us if we refuse the propitiation thus offered.

This, if fully entered into our minds, if believed with an undoubting and unwavering faith, must indeed save us all. To think of God thus revealed in Christ Jesus, thus perfect in holiness, thus infinite in love, not to all of us taken together, but to each one of us separately, must, one should think, be life eternal. At least it is most certain, that it is death not so to think of him. It is death not to be awed by the holiness of God, nor to be softened by his love. For then we go on carelessly and hardly; we live after our own devices; we fear nothing, we hope for nothing beyond what this life can offer. So we are dead in trespasses and sins; we are, to use Christ's own words, condemned already: the seal, the pledge, the earnest and foretaste of eternal death is visibly stamped upon us. What can the Resurrection then do for us, when, the veil being drawn aside, and seeing all things as they are, our part and portion will be at once manifest to ourselves? We were told in our lifetime that God was the fountain of happiness; but we laughed at it, and sought our pleasure in the things which he had made.

They are now destroyed, and God is present, and all that infinite multitude of good and blessed beings, whether of this world or of numberless others, whether of those who had never known sin, or of those who had been cleansed from it by the blood of Christ; whose hope it was, whose endless joy it is, to know and worthily to love their Maker. These are not of us, nor we of them; we know not God, and never shall know him; we know evil, and it shall be our portion for ever. Truly, this fearful portion is but the natural end of ungodliness; the moment that created things have passed away, those who loved nothing else. must needs be miserable!

But God is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto him. To know him and to love him is life; for he passes not away for ever. Whoso seeks after him shall find him; and whoso finds him has found an eternal portion of blessing. All the evil which we now suffer in this world arises from the imperfection of our knowledge of him, and from the feebleness of that faith which now should be in the place of knowledge. Our earnest prayer should be, "Lord, increase our

faith!" That prayer includes every thing, for

Christ has revealed the Father to us; and all

that is wanted is, that we should heartily believe his testimony. Lord, increase our faith, that we may believe in thy holiness, and believe in thy love; that we may know and feel, in their full meaning, thy Son's most gracious revelation of thee, that thou didst so love us as to give him for our salvation, that we should not perish, but have everlasting life!

SERMON V.

CHRISTIAN REDEMPTION.

ROMANS VII. 24.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

THE thing here described St. Paul has, to use his own words on a similar occasion, "transferred to himself in a figure for our sakes:" that is, he has applied to his own case what is in fact a general truth, referring not to himself particularly, but to all men. There is a time in every man's life, probably a great many times, in which he ought to feel what St. Paul expresses in the text; it may be that he does not feel so, but that is because he is not aware of, or impressed by, his own real condition; and if he does not feel it himself, so much the less is the likelihood of his being delivered from it. There is a time, or times, in the lives of all of us, when we ought to feel what St. Paul expresses: let us consider, each for