tian. The fact that God is unchangeable in his character and purposes, is a never failing source of consolation to his children, and of terror to the wicked. Were it not for this, how could the christian know that God would not, at some future period, destroy the great spiritual building, which he has been erecting for six thousand years; change his mercy to justice, recall the atonement of his Son; and doom the church triumphant to the vengeance of eternal fire. Against the apprehension of all these evils, the christian is shielded by the declaration, I am the Lord, I change not. Firmly relying on the immutable goodness and the unchanging purposes of Jehovah, he goes forward to the moral conquest of the world, with an assurance of final triumph. When like Moses of old, he reaches the Jordan, over which he cannot pass, he cheerfully resigns his place to another, who will bear the banners of the cross onward, till the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ. The faithful pastor will study clearly and pointedly to inculcate the doctrine of total depravity. This doctrine is the statement of a single fact respecting the moral character of man. This fact is, that the moral affections of men, which ought to centre on God and holiness, centre on the world and sin. doctrine of total depravity does not assert, or imply, that men are naturally destitute of amiableness, or kind social feelings. It does not assert that they are destitute of honesty in the various transactions of life; or that they are destitute of those desirable qualities, which make them good citizens, kind neighbors, faithful friends, affectionate husbands and parents. It does not affirm that men are wholly depraved in their

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physical and intellectual powers, or their social affections. The physical and intellectual and social depravity of man is great, as every observer must be compelled to acknowledge; for there is among men, a great perversion of these powers and affections. But still this perversion is not entire. This depravity is not total; for these powers and affections are employed, to some extent, as God designed they should be. If not by all men, yet by many. It is not in these parts of our nature that we look for total depravity. But this doctrine does assert, and does mean to assert, that men are destitute of holiness without which no one shall see the Lord. That their moral affections, which ought to centre upon God, are wholly perverted from their proper channel, and centre on themselves, their earthly plans and enjoyments. It asserts that they do not love God with all their hearts, nor with any part of them; that they must be born again, or they cannot see the kingdom of heaven. From the history of the world, and the declarations of the bible, this view of total depravity, is capable of proof by evidence of as high authority, as great, as clear, and as uniform, as that which supports any maxim in the Newtonian philosophy; or of any science which has gained the universal consent of mankind. The doctrine of total depravity is truly fundamental in the christian system. It is that, in view of which, the plan of salvation was devised, and to which all its parts are adapted.. Before the time of Newton, all the systems of philosophy were false and inconsistent, because they were not founded on that one law of attraction, which regulates all the movements of the natural world. So, all systems of religion, that

are not founded on the one fact, that men are totally depraved in their moral affections, are false and inconsistent, and no way fitted to teach men the truth, or lead them to God. All the fundamental truths of the gospel hang on this one fact. If men are not totally sinful, there is no need of an entire change of heart. If they are not wholly inclined to evil, they are not wholly dependent on the spirit of God for holy desires and holy affections. If they are partly inclined to love God, then he can never have the whole praise of their salvation. Let this one fact be established, that men are totally depraved in their moral affections, and in a moment the gospel becomes a system of truth, and love, and joy, well befitting a God to devise, angels to publish, and Zion's heralds to trumpet round this guilty world, The faithful inculcation of this doctrine confounds and puts to shame all infidel and heathen nations concerning the purity and perfection of our nature. brings down lofty looks and high imaginations; sweeps away the refuges of lies, that poetry and oratory have thrown around the character of the great; brings man at the foot of divine mercy, a sinful, dependent suppliant; and thus lays a deep and broad foundation, for that living and lasting piety which the gospel requires.

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Faithfulness requires the heralds of truth to preach salvation through Christ and his cross. There is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we can be saved. Paul, the most successful preacher of the gospel determined to know nothing, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. The cross of Christ is the sun of the moral world. fore its rising, the intellectual and moral darkness of

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the nations flee away like the shadows of night. Before its heavenly light Paganism forsakes her cruel altars, deserts her polluted temples, abandons her obscene worship, snatches from the monster of the deep her devoted infants, and from the funeral pile her burning widows. Before the cross, the bold front of infidelity stands abashed her iron sinews tremble, her brazen heart quakes, her tearless eye moistens, heaven becomes a reality, the smoke of the bottomless pit tells its existence and the torment of its inhabitants; and at last infidelity herself flies to the cross, as the only refuge from the tempest of divine wrath. The Jew must renounce his ceremonies, the Mahomedan break league with his Arabian prophet, the Persian cast away his boasted wisdom, and the august monarch come down from his throne, and all must bow before the cross. This is the ensign of that kingdom, which is to triumph over all kingdoms; to demolish the strong holds of Satan's empire; to hush the tumult of the embattled plain, and make the earth, one vast altar, from which incense shall ascend to God as the clouds of heaven. By the cross, the justice of God is maintained, his holiness forever established, the proclamation of pardon issued, the heralds of the gospel commissioned, the Holy Spirit shed down on a sinful world, an innumerable company of sinners redeemed, the sting of death taken away, the grave conquered, the gates of heaven unbarred, and the courts of paradise filled with those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. By the cross, every creature which is in heaven and on the earth, is made to shout, blessing and honor and glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.

Some think they can induce men to repent, and can awaken in their bosoms emotions of piety, by setting forth the loveliness and the rewards of virtue, without preaching the doctrine of the cross. Whatever claims such men may make to honesty or piety, they can make none to sound philosophy. They reason neither from facts drawn from the word of God, the history of the world, nor even from their own experience. Mistaken men indeed! they may as well think to call up the rolling storm, or to awaken the tenants of the tomb, by their talk on the rewards and the loveliness of virtue. A man who rejects salvation by the cross of Christ, may preach till his locks are white with age; till the brightness of his vision is dimmed by his moral vigils; till of all his generation he stands alone in the congregation, a stranger amidst a race sprung up at his feet, and then be compelled to exclaim, who hath heard our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed. Let now this veteran preacher, who has spent his life in beating the air, be called of God at the eleventh hour to work in his vineyard; let him be fired with zeal which is according to knowledge; let him hold communion with heaven, till his heart has caught fire from above; and then let him go away and shake his white locks, while he pours forth the deep and throbbing energies of his soul in preaching the cross, and every eye will glisten with tears, and every heart will burst at the remembrance of its follies and its crimes. Faith in the cross of Christ makes the bosom, which is so often the seat of contending passions, the battle-ground of conscience and duty, of judgment and feeling, of our eternal interests and our earthly inclinations;