whether it be moral or ceremonial, he is fallen from grace, equally as if he denied the necessity of any dependance on Christ. In either case, Christ is become of no effect to him. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, not to help them to save themselves; not to do something towards saving them; not to save them in part; but by his blood and Spirit to do all that was necessary to their salvation, and all that is involved in their salvation. Christ came not to make up the deficiencies of our righteousness, but to make out a complete righteousness for us; not to supply what is wanting in human merit, but himself alone to merit for us all we need or shall need through eternity. He and he alone must be depended on. His and his only must be all the glory.

There is nothing more remarkable in the Bible, nothing more admirable, nothing more distinctive of it as the word of God, and not the work of man, than the simplicity of the method of salvation which it reveals; and especially as it regards that which the sinner himself has to do. There is mystery connected with the plan of salvation, it is true; mystery in the person of Christ, mystery in his sufferings, and mystery in the operations of the Holy Spirit; but mystery is not necessarily inconsistent with simplicity. And besides we have nothing to do with the mysteries of the method, but just to believe them as facts. It is not made our duty to unravel or comprehend them; but only to believe them. And there is no more difficulty in believing a mysterious fact, than a fact not mysterious, if there be sufficient evidence of it. Our belief of a

statement, depends not on the nature of it, but on the evidence which supports it.

The Gospel transcended expectation, and it surpassed conception. Even heaven, that was accustomed to God's benevolence, was amazed at it, and angels have never yet recovered from the astonishment which seized them, when first they contemplated the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Yet wretched men affect to conceive that impostors have forged, or enthusiasts devised the glorious Gospel; or at least they can see nothing marvellous in it. Oh, the human mind was no more capable of contriving the Gospel, than human hands were of spreading out and garnishing the heavens. Creation no more than redemption, bears the impress of Divinity.

It is a received principle among the skeptics, that of two miracles, one of which must be believed, we must choose the less, as being the least opposed to reason. On this principle, the infidel is bound to believe the Gospel. For to regard the Bible as false, would compel us to believe a more marvellous thing, than to receive it as true. It is far less improbable, that this narrative, with all its stupendous facts and revelations, should be true, than that any man, or set of men, should have been able to invent it. The latter supposition is too monstrous to be received by any thing but a bad heart. If the Gospel came not from the inspiration of the Most High, will they that deny it, tell us where it did come from? Since it professes to come from God, if it did not come from him, it proceeded from a gang of abominable impostors; and yet it contains, incontesta

bly, the most pure and perfect system of ethics and theology, that has ever been presented to the world. So that the purest and sublimest doctrines had their derivation from the boldest impiety, and that which has done more than all other things put together, both to inform mankind of their duty, and to spur them on to its performance, was the work of some of the worst men that ever lived! Is not this a wonderful thing, a most stupendous miracle? And yet the falsehood of the Gospel involves this, and the infidel must believe it. Or will it be said, that the evangelists and apostles were weak and enthusiastic men- -not preserved from old wives' fables, by any sound philosophy? Then enthusiasm, than which nothing is more easily detected, and nothing more wild and incoherent than its works, has produced a sober and harmonious system, which does not bear a single characteristic of that which produced it, nor has the smallest affinity with it; and a system which has sustained every attack made upon it for eighteen hundred years, and has, at this moment, among its friends, a large majority of the wisest, most learned, most scientific and most sober men on earth. Here is another miracle which the system of unbelief involves.

10

THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL.

The Gospel is the most powerful agent of which we have any knowledge. It is, (so far as known) universal in its operations, and predominant in its influence. There is no man that can escape from its power, however much he may desire to do so. He may think that he does, but he is mightily mistaken. No one that has once had the knowledge of it, can ever get out of the reach of it. You may let it alone, but it will not let you alone. You may shut out the light of the natural sun, and secure yourself from its various influences, but you cannot entirely exclude the light of the Gospel from your understanding and conscience. You can find no place where it will not exert its influences upon you. You have been affected by it in all time past. You will be affected by it to-day. You are not to-day, what you were yesterday; nor will you be to-morrow, what you are, in a moral point of view, to-day. And these alterations that are continually going on in you, are either wholly effected, or greatly modified by the Gospel. You never hear a sermon, you never read a chapter of Holy Writ, you never live a day under the light of the Gospel, without being affected by it. How solemn and alarming the consideration! Even while this thought is before your mind, the soul within you is changing its complexion and its consistence,-is becoming morally, and in the eye of God, more and more lovely, or more and more deformed,-more tender and

susceptible, or more hard and insensible; and the Gospel is the great instrument in producing these changes. You may say that you are entirely unconscious of any change, even under the preaching of the Gospel; and so perhaps you are. But what of that? We are rarely, if ever conscious of the operation of moral causes upon us. They operate, for the most part, secretly and insensibly, yet not on that account any the less really and efficiently. Even in regard to the greatest of all the changes which the human character ever undergoes, the change which takes place in regeneration, when the soul passes from sin to holiness, from death to life, how few, whose lives prove that they have experienced it, can point to the precise time, when they even suppose it was effected. They may prove from infallible signs, that it has been wrought in them, but they are not conscious of the working. And is the Christian sensible of the progress by which he is gradually becoming more and more holy and like unto God? And how does he know that he is progressively sanctified by the truth? Not by his consciousness, while the operation is going on, but by comparing his character at one period with the same at some preceding period. The same principle applies to evil influences. They work in secret. The heart is not conscious of the power that is at work upon it. Indeed, the man that is gradually becoming worse and worse, (as multitudes are, as in fact every man is, who is not undergoing a meliorating process,) is not only not aware of the several steps of the depravation, but he is perhaps ignorant of the fact that he is growing worse. For he