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ward we experience, by grace, through faith, the proper Christian salvation, consisting of two parts, justification and sanctification. By justification we are saved from the guilt of sin, and restored to the favour of God. By sanctification we are saved from the power and root of sin, and restored to the image of God. O brethren, shall we not seek these blessings? Shall the cool lectures of the schoolmen fire the soul of the student with an ardent wish to explore the field of science? Shall the glittering tinsel of fortune's plume, fire the beholder with enthusiastic desires to fly round the circle of wealth; and shall the minister of Jesus Christ, who alone teaches the science of salvation, have to address an uninterested and unfeeling multitude? Consider, brethren, it is your own salvation which you are exhorted to work out. The most laborious servitude is rendered tolerable, by an assurance that we shall receive its entire and ample product. In the work of salvation we secure our own peace and happiness, both in this life, and in that which is to come; and unless we work out our salvation, we plunge our souls into guilt and fear in this world, and into eternal despair in the next. Solemn thought! Hence, says the apostle, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Consider the difficulty of the work, and the danger of miscarriage; how many mountains of difficulty to pass over; how many open enemies, as well as foes in ambush; how many difficult duties to perform, exposed, as we are, at once to the attacks of the devil, our common enemy, and also to our own hearts' lusts. Ah, brethren, we have cause to fear and trem

ble. Yet the apostle does not refer to the paralyzing fear of the coward, nor yet the servile fear of the slave. But he refers to that fear that accords with happiness and filial affection; a fear that "a promise being left us of entering into his rest, we should come short" of it, and lose the eternal opportunity of seeing, praising, and adoring Jesus, which, to the child of God, is the highest imaginable idea of heavenly happiness; a fear of offending our God, to whom we are so much indebted for what he has already done for us. There is nothing which the ingenuous child fears more, than to offend and wound the feelings of an indulgent parent. Hence, says the apostle, in the 15th verse, "that ye may be the sons of God without rebuke;" persons against whom no charge of transgression can be justly laid.

My brethren, we have endeavoured to give you a scriptural view of this subject, in which you must have discovered that you are accountable beings. And let me now observe, that every moment of life is full before God, and we are either working out our salvation, or destruction:

"Man is the maker of immortal fates."

Would it not be well to pause, and inquire, what we may reasonably expect to be the issue of our conduct.

Consider, man, you have but little time to spend, and the work which you have to do is of the utmost importance. Seeing that you are unable to accomplish it without assistance, behold God himself comes to your assistance. Shall we, then, on whom heaven has

lavished its bounties in so many ways, be sluggish, and pass through the whole of life, without feeling solicitous about the crown Christ purchased with his blood? Shall heaven

"All lavish of strange gifts to man,"

be requited with so much ingratitude and baseness? Have you begun, in earnest, the work of your salvation? Your situation, if you have not, is really awful. You are a neglecter of salvation. But if you have begun the work, do you feel that you are still continuing to strive? Have you shunned the snares which make the Christian tremble only to behold; or have you fallen into the snare of the devil?

SERMON XI.

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Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place. Isai. xxviii. 17.

My brethren, the first of all truths, and the foundation of all religion is, that there is a God. It is almost as natural for us to believe that there is a God, as it is for us to be men; and there never has existed a nation, who has not acknowledged and worshipped a Divinity. If in any case the tongue dares to utter that there is no God, it either absolutely contradicts the thoughts of the heart, or is led away by the irregular motions of the soul, exhibiting rather its desire or wish, than what it really feels. Man's principal folly has not generally consisted so much in absolutely denying this self-evident truth, as in contemplating God as a being destitute of some perfection, or in whom discordant perfections concen

trate.

If we look into the pagan mythology, we shall discover a disposition rather to admit too many deities, than to deny any; for, says St. Paul, "they turned the glory of the incorruptible God into an

image like to corruptible man, and into birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." And it has been observed, that every thing in the pagan world. was defied, but God himself.

The ignorance of the Christian world has appeared in a different way. For while they have acknowledged but one ever-living and true God, they have robbed him of his glory, by attempting to reconcile his unblemished holiness with sin and impurity.

Although the Almighty at some times, shrouds his providences in the mantle of obscurity, so that all things seem to happen alike to all for a season; yet afterward he goeth out of that darkness and those clouds that surround him, and declares that though he is a pardoning God, keeping mercy for thousands that call upon him, yet he will by no means acquit the guilty.

In the words of the text we hear him vindicate his holiness, by assuring the Ephramites, notwithstanding their boasted strength and vain trust in the Assyrian army, which he calls a refuge of lies, and a hiding-place, that he will punish them for their apostacy and vain trust, by such agents as he shall think proper to employ; denominated, in the text, hail, and floods of water. And lest they should think that, according to his wonted forbearance, he would overlook their base and repeated provocations; he declares, that he will judge them by a standard of the most rigorous justice, which he represents by the figures, putting judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet.

The design of the prophet seems to have been, to convince the Ephramites of the folly and danger of

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