tude to him who redeemed you,-who reconciled you to God. Let your gratitude and love be evidenced by a holy life and conversation, that you may glorify your redeeming God. And O! what a debt of gratitude and love do you owe to him who saw and pitied your miserably ruined condition ; who said to you in that condition, "Live ;" "who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;" who now supplies all your necessities; who guides you, by his unerring counsel, through all the dangers and intricacies of life; and who, at last, will receive you into his glory.

Well may you sing, even in the house of your pilgrimage, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake."3

2. To those who are anxious to be reconciled to God and saved from the wrath to come." Do the guilt of your past folly and your present infirmities so heavily press upon your mind, that you cannot look up with confidence and say, the Lord is "become my salvation?" Do you feel and confess with the penitent psalmist, "Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up?" Under the multitude of your gloomy apprehensions and fearful forebodings, you may

1 1 Pet. ii. 9.

4 Is. xii. 2.

4

rejoice, though with trembling. You are graciously invited and exhorted to come and taste of the waters of life freely. For you there is “a fountain opened"—"for sin and for uncleanness;6" and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." You, perhaps, are not content with the consoling declarations of God's word. You are expecting and desiring some especial intimation that your sins are pardoned; you look for some sensible proof of your acceptance with God. If so, you reject the record which God hath given us of his Son,-you refuse to credit the word of God, you substitute feeling for faith, and are seeking light and warmth from a fire of your own kindling. Take God at his word; believe, rest upon the doctrines of the gospel, as the truths of the God who cannot lie, who cannot deceive. Believe that Jesus is able and willing to save you, repose upon him as an all-sufficient Saviour, and you are in a saved state, you are reconciled to God, you are "accepted in the Beloved."

3. To those who lightly esteem the blessed state of being reconciled to God, we would administer a word of admonition. You deny or disbelieve the existence of enmity between God and yourselves. You, therefore, are unconcerned about the means of destroying that enmity. You doubt or disbelieve

6 Zechar. xiii. 1.

7 1 John i. 7.

the efficacy of those means. This is a proof of enmity, the enmity of the carnal mind which refuses to submit to the will of God, which refuses to be saved and blessed in God's prescribed way. The insubjection of the carnal mind to the law of God, is not a greater demonstration of that mind's enmity against God, than its rejection of the salvation revealed and offered in the gospel. It is as much the will of God "that you believe on him whom he hath sent," as that you should obey any one of, or all the commands of the moral law. If you live and die without Christ, you live and die in your sins, you live and die in enmity against God. And what will aggravate your final condemnation, beyond the condemnation even of the fallen angels, is, that you rejected the overtures of mercy made to you, which were never made to them; and despised the rich provisions of grace made for you and brought to your doors, which were neither made nor designed for the fallen angels.

8 John vi. 29, and 1 John iii. 23.

SERMON XIV.

ON THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIALS AND DELIVER

ANCE.

MATT. viii. 23-26.

"And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm."

"MANY are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth him out of them all," were the confession and experience of the sweet singer of Israel. The children of the Most High, though the objects of his everlasting love, are not exempt from tribulation in this world. "The Captain of their salvation" was made "perfect through suf2 Heb. ii. 10.

1 Ps. xxxiv. 19.

ferings;" and he has forewarned all his followers: "In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." The Christian's tribulations are various; but they are wisely adapted to the case and the circumstances of the man who is "exercised thereby." By trials, poverty, want, sickness, bereavement, or painful revolutions in the affairs of individuals and families; by persecutions the most cruel, dangers the most imminent; and by deliverances the most signal;—our heavenly Father trains up his children, prepares some of them for eminent and useful stations and services here, and for an elevated rank in glory hereafter. It is admitted that dangers and deliverances, prosperity and adversity, joys and sorrows, are common to the righteous and the wicked; and that nearly the same things in this world happen to the godly and the ungodly .But, in the design and effect of these dispensations, there is a wide and important difference as to the two characters. To the godly, troubles and adversities are the salutary corrections of a tender and wise Father: to the ungodly, they are indications of God's provoked wrath. While "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose;" all things work together for the more dreadful con

3 John xvi. 33.

4 Rom. viii. 28.