relatively, but a point of space, and a few years or ages of duration. Then they are well nigh forgotten. Behold in the Cross, an object whose influences have affected every individual of every generation; an object which diffuses a moral glory through the universe; one that will be remembered with the deepest interest, as long as souls exist; one which angels gaze at; one that probably will for ever affect all beings, in all worlds. Yes; the object of the great salvation is one that fills both eternity and immensity.

II. The hope of escape, on the part of the neglecter of this salvation, is fallacious and vain.

Men of infidel principles deny, of course, the reality of any such salvation as has been described, and maintain, either that death is a mere change in the mode of existence, from which no evil is to be apprehended, or an eternal sleep. They scout the idea of salvation from a danger, which they pretend to think purely imaginary. We are not now dealing with such. We refer to those who profess some belief in Divine Revelation-some respect for the Bible. They hope to escape, not by resisting the power, or hiding from the presence of GOD: not by being overlooked and forgotten in the immensity of His works: not on the ground that He is indifferent to moral distinctions, or regardless of human conduct. They are not so infatuated as to trust in anything of this sort. No: their hope of impunity is derived from some other source. It will be found, generally speaking, to rest on some one of the three following supports: either that all will be saved-or that a moral life is sufficient-or that in the close of life, if not before, perhaps in the very hour of dissolution, GOD will give them converting grace. These are the most plausible and popular grounds of a delusive hope.

As to the first, that all will be saved. Is the moral influence of this opinion good? Does it tend to make men humble, prayerful, watchful against sin? Has it a reforming power over the young? Who are most gratified to resort to meetings where it is held forth, the pious and devout, or the irreligious and careless? When, of two sides of a question, the one is safe, the other dangerous; when, by embracing the latter, nothing substantial is gained, and by embracing the former, nothing substantial is lost; what part does wisdom dictate? Besides, when the question was directly put to Christ, "Are there few that be saved?" why, if all are saved, did he not, on so fair an occasion, bring out the truth? Why give an answer, evidently teaching the contrary: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying, LORD, LORD, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:" "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the Prophets, in the kingdom of GOD, and you yourselves thrust out."

When men find themselves driven from this ground, the refuge next resorted to is apt to be worldly morality-a very different thing from Christian morality, as it lays the main stress on duty to man, overlooking, to a great extent, duty to GOD. They bring themselves to believe, that if free from disreputable vice; if honest in dealings, good neighbors, useful citizens, and kind to their families; GOD will not be strict to mark what they call by the soft name of infirmities, but consider them as cancelled by a predominance of good deeds over evil. But what saith Scripture on this point? "Ye must be born again""Make you a new heart and a new spirit"-" He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life"-" Without holiness shall no man see the LORD." If these and similar passages mean anything, they must mean that something more spiritual than a cold worldly morality, however exact, is necessary to make men what they ought to be; fit for Heaven.

When convinced that neither an indiscriminate salvation, nor an external morality, is a safe reliance, men often flee, as a dernier ressort, to the hope that some time in the course of life, possibly at the very close, GOD will interpose with his converting grace. We grant this is possible; in some few instances, genuine death-bed repentance doubtless occurs; we have one clear instance in the Bible, the case of the penitent thief on the Cross. This was put there that none might utterly despair. But take notice, that in all the Bible is found but one such instance that none may presume to delay. Shall everlasting interests be risked on a bare peradventure? Suppose, that after a life of irreligion, you have in the last sickness some feelings that seem like repentance: how are you to test their genuineness? Health is the proper time to bring such things to the proof. How can you determine that feelings, excited only by the near approach of death, are anything better than instinctive alarm, or selfish apprehension? Must not your sun, in such a case, descend beneath the horizon of life, in obscurity and doubt? Can there but be a dread, lest "the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved?"

The truth is, that to the impenitent sinner there is no escape. His sin will find him out. "The hail shall sweep away the refuges of lies." "If the righteous be scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" Though they dig into hell, thence shall my hand take them; though they climb up to Heaven, thence will I bring them down." "When they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them-and they shall not escape."

These views open the way to a multitude of reflections, of which only a few can now be introduced.

How many presumptuous hopes of impunity, fondly cherished by wicked men, are doomed to fatal and eternal disappointment!

Proportionate to the greatness of this salvation, is the obligation to seek its blessings. Reader, are you so doing? Striving to enter in at the strait gate? Practically regarding an interest in Christ as of all objects the most important? Preparing for an eternity, which will

be ever running on but never run out? In the same proportion is the guilt of neglecting such a salvation. Better, we repeat, to neglect anything than the soul. What anguish in the dying hour has the neglect occasioned to millions, when they saw the loss was irretrievable! As in the case of the dying sinner who exclaimed, "O, I would give worlds to be pardoned !"

A salvation so inestimable-so perfectly adapted to meet the moral necessities and relieve the spiritual miseries of man-so precious, in relation to the Agent employed, the price paid, the blessings conferred, and the duration to which it extends-is worthy of such a memorial as the LORD's Supper. Let us, therefore, at fitting times, "keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

Why is this salvation, this pearl of price, so generally neglected among men? Can we account for the fact, except by the admission of the blindness and depravity of their hearts? How strange that man, the only being in this world capable of religion, should be so occupied with trifles, and so regardless of his highest interests!

A salvation so great, demands not only our personal acceptance of it, but our earnest efforts to recommend it to our friends and neighbors, and impart the knowledge of it to the most distant nations. Behold here an ample justification both of Christian labors at home, and of Christian Missions abroad. For these objects, how much needs to be done! Here is work enough for every individual in the Church of Christ. In this sacred community, let there be no idle, no indifferent, member. "Wherefore, beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the LORD; forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain, in the LORD."

Amen.

MINISTER OF THE THIRD REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA.

THE STRENGTH OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY.

"God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:

"(As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor; his righteousness remaineth for ever.

Now he that ministereth seed to the sower, both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness);

"Being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.

"For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God;

"Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the Gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men ;

"And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you."-2 Corinthians, ix. 8--14.

THE divinity of the Gospel is seen in its divine effects. In the beginning God made man in his own image, and humanity, though rained by sin, remains the most wonderful proof of Almighty energy, goodness and skill. But the miracle of the likeness of God in man, is repeated with vast increase of honor to the Creator, and favor to the creature, when by the word of salvation sinners are transformed, as the Apostle Peter assures us, into "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter, i. 3, 4). The interval between the best perfection of a Christian and the perfection of God his Sanctifier, must be immeasurable; yet, as the reflection of light is light, the graces of Christian character are divine, because they are effects of divine grace.

The consequences of faith in the Gospel always correspond with the grace of the Gospel. The Gospel reveals the love of God to the believer, and faith works by love; God makes all grace abound toward the believer in all things, and faith abounds to every good work (8 ver.). His enjoyment of the great goodness of God, expands the believer's capacity of affection, and faculty of doing good. The greatness of the condescension of God in admitting the believer to his fellowship, and a co-operation in goodness, elevates him to a dignity and comprehensiveness of purpose, approaching, so far as the finite can

* Preached before the Foreign Evangelical Society, New York, May 5, 1844. VOL. XVIII.-NO. VI.

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infinity, divine benevolence. The believer is united to Christ his glorified Head, and has a conscious active sympathy with all the members of Christ's true body, his Church. The Holy Ghost inspires him with holy life, and he knows it to be " the working of that mighty Power" (Eph. i. 29), whereby God is "subduing all things to himself" (Phil. iii. 21). God adopts him as his son, and all the children of his heavenly Father become his beloved brethren. And when through Christ, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, he prays to God his Father for blessings upon the multitude, thus dear to him, in all lands and among all people, he feels himself linked to the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of His grace, who has said, " Unto me shall all flesh come" (Ps. 1xv. 2). Feeble as the believer may seem to be, his means of Christian benevolence are unbounded, the counsels he follows are infallible, and wherever upon the face of the whole earth lives a needy soul, there, like the Spirit of Divine Love, he can go in the providence and bounty of God, laden with benefits; and thence, as the harvest pays back the seed of Spring manifold, will return, in the order of the same providence and bounty, blessings rich, fragrant, and multiplied upon his own soul, with abundant thanksgivings unto

God.

This is the substance of our text, the length of which gives us the advantage of the Apostle's reasoning, always incomparably better than any the urinspired preacher can substitute for it. If the discourse should be long also, it will not be longer than the interest of the theme demands.

The occasion of the Apostle's address in this part of his epistle, was the necessity of the mother church at Jerusalem, which, besides suffering severely from the malignant bigotry of the Jews (1 Thess. ii. 14, 15), who, especially after the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts xi. 19), spoiled them of their goods, and pressed them with a great fight of afflictions (Heb. x. 32-34), were now under the calamity of famine. (Acts xi. 27, 28.) Collections had been made for these "poor saints" in many churches, as those of Galatia (1 Cor. xvi. 1), and Macedonia (Rom. xv. 26; 2 Cor. viii. 1-4), upon the just principle, that the Gentiles, having received the Gospel from Jerusalem, were bound to serve in carnal things those with whom they had been made partakers in spiritual things (Rom. xv. 27). The same kindness, promised, indeed, a year before (2 v.), is now asked from the Christians in Achaia, of which Corinth was the chief city. This introduces the whole subject of

CHRISTIAN CHARITY;

which, from the tenor of the New Testament, we may define to be, LOVE TO CHRIST MANIFEST IN LOVE TO THOSE WHOM CHRIST loves. We have before us the Apostle's doctrine, argument, and exhortations. Let us endeavor to profit by them, and learn the exercise of true Christian, Charity, while we consider,

First. Its EFFORTS.