CONCLUDING ADDRESSES.

ADDRESS TO THE CITIZENS OF THE KINGDOM.

FELLOW-CITIZENS,

Your rank and standing under the reign of the Prince of Peace have never been surpassed—indeed, have never been equalled by any portion of the human race. You have visions and revelations of God-his being and perfectionsdevelopments of the depths of his wisdom and knowledge, of the counsels of his grace, and the purposes of his love, which give you an intellectual and moral superiority above all your predecessors in the Patriarchal and Jewish ages of the world. Secrets of God, which were hid from ages and generations, have been revealed to you by the apostles of the great Apostle and High Priest of your confession. What Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-Moses, David, Isaiah, Daniel, and all the prophets, down to John the harbinger, rejoiced to anticipate, you have realized and enjoyed. The intellectual pleasures of the highest and most sublime conceptions of God and of Christ vouchsafed to you, so far transcend the attainments of the ancient people of God, that you are comparatively exalted to heaven, and may enjoy the days of heaven upon earth. You have a book which contains not only the charter of your privileges, but which explains a thousand mysteries in the antecedent administrations of God over all the nations of the earth. In it you have such interpretations of God's past providences in the affairs of individuals, families, and nations, as open to you a thousand sources of rational and sentimental enjoyment, from incidents and things which puzzled and perplexed the most intelligent and highly favoured of past ages. Mountains are indeed levelled; valleys are exalted; rough places are made plain, and crooked ways straight to your apprehension; and from these data you are able to form more just conceptions of the present, and more lofty anticipations of the future, than fell to the lot

of the most highly favoured subjects of preceding dispensations. And, indeed, so inexhaustible are the deep and rich mines of knowledge and understanding in the Christian revelations, that the most comprehensive mind in the kingdom of heaven might labour in them during the age of a Methusaleh, constantly enriching itself with all knowledge and spiritual understanding, and yet leave at last vast regions and tracts of thought wholly unexplored.

But this decided superiority over the most gifted saints of former ages you unquestionably enjoy. Among all the living excellencies with which they were acquainted, they wanted a perfect model of all human excellence. Bright as were the virtues and excellencies of an Abraham, a Joseph, a David, there were dark spots, or, at least, some blemishes in their moral character. They failed to place in living form before their contemporaries, or to leave as a legacy to posterity, every virtue, grace, and excellence that adorn human nature. But you have Jesus, not only as "the image of the invisible God," an "effulgence of his glory, and an exact representation of his character;" but as a man, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sin, exhibiting in the fullest perfection every excellence which gives amiability, dignity, and glory to human character. You have motives to purity and holiness, a stimulus to all that is manly, good, and excellent, from what he said, and did, and suffered as the Son of man, which would have added new charms and beauties to the most exemplary of all the saints of the olden times.

Means and opportunities of the highest intellectual and moral enjoyments are richly bestowed on you, for which they sighed in vain; God having provided some better things for christians than for Jews and patriarchs. Shall we not,

then, fellow-citizens, appreciate and use, as we ought, to our present purity and happiness, to our eternal honour and glory, the light which the Sun of Righteousness has shed so richly and abundantly on us? Remember that we stand upon apostles and prophets, and are sustained by Jesus, the light of the world, and the interpreter and vindicator of all God's ways to man in creation, providence, and redemption. All suns are stars; and he that is now to us in this life" the sun of righteousness," in respect of the future is "the Bright and Morning Star." Till the day of eternity dawn, and the daystar of immortality arise in our hearts, let us always look to Jesus.

But it is not only the felicity of superior heavenly light, though that is most delectable to our rational nature, which distinguishes you the citizens of this kingdom; but that personal, real, and plenary remission of all sin, which you enjoy through the blood of the Lamb of God, bestowed on you through the ordinance of Christian immersion, and confession of sins.

The Jews, indeed, had sacrifices under the law, which could, and did, take away ceremonial sins; and which so far absolved from the guilt of transgressing that law, as to give them a right to the continued enjoyment of the temporal and political promises of the national compact; but farther, Jewish sacrifices and ablutions could not reach. This benefit every Jew had from them. But as respected the conscience, Paul, that great commentator on Jewish sacrifice, assures us they had no power. "With respect to the conscience," says he," they could not make him who did the service perfect."

The entrance of the law gave the knowledge of sin. It gave names to particular sins, and "caused the offence to abound."―The sacrifices appended to it had respect to that institution alone, and not to sin in the general, nor to sin in its true and proper nature. The promise made to the patriarchs, and the sacrificial institution added to it, through faith in that promise, led the believing to anticipate a real sinoffering; but it appears the Jewish sacrifices had only respect to the Jewish institution, and excepting their typical character, gave no new light to those under that economy on the subject of a true and proper remission of sins, through the real and bloody sacrifice of Christ.

The patriarch and the believing Jew, as respected a real remission of sins, stood upon the same ground; for, as has been observed, the legal institution, or, as Paul says, “the supervening of the law," made no change in the apprehensions of remission, as respected the conscience. But a new age

having come, (for "these ordinances for cleansing the flesh were imposed only till the time of reformation,") and Christ having, by a more perfect sacrifice, opened the way into the true holy places, has laid the foundation for perfecting the conscience by a real and full remission of sins, which, by the virtue of his blood, terminates not upon the flesh, but upon the conscience of the sinner.

John, indeed, who lived at the dawn of the reformation, preached reformation with an immersion for the remission of

sins, saying that 'they should believe in him that was to come after him.' Those who believed John's gospel, and reformed, and were immersed into John's reformation, had remission of sins through faith in him that was to come; but you, fellow-citizens, even in respect of the enjoyment of remission, are greatly advanced above the disciples of John. You have been immersed, not only by the authority of Jesus, as Lord of all, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, but into the death or sacrifice of Christ. This no disciple of Moses or of John knew any thing about. This gives you an insight into sin, and a freedom from it as respects conscience-a peace and a joy unutterable and full of glory, to which both the disciples of Moses and of the harbinger were strangers. So that the light of the risen day of Heaven's eternal Sun greatly excels, not only the glimmering of the stars in the patriarchal age, and the faint light of the moon in the Jewish age, but even the twilight of the morning.

Your new relation to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, into which you have been introduced by faith in the Messiah, and immersion into his death, verifies, in respect of the sense and assurance of remission, all that John and Jesus said concerning the superiority of privilege, vouchsafed to the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. You can see your sins washed away in the blood that was shed on Mount Calvary. That which neither the highly favoured John, nor any other disciple of the Messiah could understand, till Jesus said, "It is finished;" you not only clearly perceive, but have cordially embraced. You can feel and say with all assurance, that" the blood of Jesus Christ now cleanses you from all sin ;" and that by faith you have access to the Mediator of the new institution, and to the blood of sprinkling which speaks glad tidings to the heart. You have an Advocate with the Father; and, when conscious of any impurity, coming to God by him, confessing your sins, and supplicating pardon through his blood, you have the promise of remission. You now know how God is just as well as merciful, in forgiving iniquity, transgression, and

sin.

But superior light and knowledge, and enlarged conceptions of God, with such an assurance of real and personal remission as pacifies the conscience, and introduces the peace of God into the heart, are not the only distinguishing

favours which you enjoy in the new relation to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, into which you are introduced under the reign of heaven; but you are formally adopted into the family of God, and constituted the sons and daughters of the Father Almighty.

To be called "the friend of God," was the highest title bestowed on Abraham; to be called the friends of Christ, was the peculiar honour of the disciples of Christ, to whom he confided the secrets of his reign; but to be called "the children of God through faith in Jesus Christ," is not only the common honour of all christians, but the highest honour which could be vouchsafed to the inhabitants of this earth. Such honour have you, my fellow-citizens, in being related to the only-begotten Son of God: "For to as many as received him, he gave the privilege of becoming the sons of God." These, indeed, were not descended from families of noble blood, nor genealogies of high renown: neither are they the offspring of the instincts of the flesh, nor made the sons of God" by the will of man," who sometimes adopts the child of another as his own; but they are "born of God" through the ordinances of his grace. "Behold how great love the father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God!" "The world, indeed, does not know us, because it did not know him. Beloved, now are we the children of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be."

"Because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." And if sons, it follows 66 you are heirs of God through Christ'—the heir of all things. Is this, fellow-citizens, a romantic vision, or sober and solemn truth, that you are children of God, possessing the spirit of Christ, and constituted heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ of the eternal inheritance! What manner of persons, then, ought you to be! How pure, how holy, and heavenly in your temper! How just and righteous in all your ways! How humble and devoted to the Lord! How joyful and triumphant in your King!

Permit me, then, to ask, Wherein do you excel?-nay, rather, you will propose this question to yourselves. You will say, How shall we still more successfully promote the interest, the honour, and the triumphs of the gospel of the kingdom? Is there any thing we can do by our behaviour, our morality, our piety, by our influence, by all the earthly